Less than four weeks after his fight with Myles Jury was announced, the former lightweight champion has once again been forced to the sidelines. It was reported on Thursday that “Showtime” had suffered an elbow injury that would require surgery and that the Milwaukee native would be out of action from four-to-six months. Edson Barboza was tabbed as his replacement in the July 25 fight against Jury originally scheduled to be the co-main event of UFC on FOX 16 in Chicago.

After being met with an immediate and understandable groan, most in the MMA community quickly realized that Thursday’s new, which was first announced on FOX Sports Live, is tragicomic awesomeness.

Does Pettis getting injured suck? No question.

Is it amazing that less than a week after he mocked his frequent Twitter provocateur Khabib Nurmagomedov about getting hurt, citing karma, Pettis himself is felled once again? Pretty much, yeah. There may not be a more star-crossed fighter on the UFC roster right now.

At the start of March, Pettis was on top of the world – he was the reigning, defending, undisputed lightweight champion of the world and heading into his second fight in four months, a fight just about everyone expected him to win. He had a solo Reebok deal, another deal with Monster Energy Drinks and was on the cover of a box of Wheaties. Well-dressed, well-spoken and well-pushed by the UFC, Pettis looked like he was poised to become one of the faces of the company.

Then Rafael dos Anjos beat the brakes off him in Dallas, leaving him with a busted up eye and some time on the sidelines to ponder what went wrong. He was booked into a return fight that didn’t make sense to many people (see: Surprising Fight of the Week) against Jury in July and now it has all gone to hell once again. You’d feel for the guy if it didn’t seem like this happens all the damn time with him.

Cain Velasquez hasn’t fought since defeating Junior dos Santos for a second time in October 2013, but the frustrations you hear from people about his inability to stay healthy is more from a “that really sucks because he’s so great and the division really needs him” perspective and part of that – in my opinion – stems from the fact that the UFC heavyweight champion isn’t courting the spotlight, talking a whole lot of mess about everyone else. He’s out of action and therefore he’s out of the public eye.

But Pettis just isn’t that dude.

He always seems to be around the headlines whether he’s healthy or not, saying all the stuff that a guy like “Cowboy” Cerrone who could probably fight six times a year and never pull up lame could rightfully say. But when your Fights-to-Wheaties Box ratio is 2:1 over the last two years, you can’t be throwing shade at guys about getting hurt, no matter how salty you are that they had previously gone in on you.

You know why this is a good fight? Because it looks like a step up in competition for the unbeaten violence machine from Brazil Almeida, but it’s more of a lateral move with a little more shine.

Pickett is returning to bantamweight after a three-fight stay at flyweight yielded a 1-2 record with that lone victory being a “too close for comfort” decision win over Neil Seery, who took the fight with a couple of weeks to prepare. He’s a recognizable name and a veteran with a few quality fights on his resume, including a win over current flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson and a finish over the man Almeida just beat, Yves Jabouin, but if you’ve watched him recently, he’s clearly not the same guy that fought under the WEC banner all those years ago.

Age and injuries have caught up to the American Top Team staple, and though he’s still double-tough and game for a scrap, his best days appear to be behind him. Stepping into the cage with a legitimate championship-level prospect with nasty striking will make that abundantly clear in July.

I admitted going into UFC 186 that I wasn’t completely sold on Almeida – he’d been settling fools on the regional circuit as podcast regular Duane Finley would say, but he went the distance with Timmy Gorman in his promotional debut and I worried that Jabouin might have something more to offer him.

He didn’t. I was there. It was beautiful and ugly all at the same time.

“Thominhas” is the real deal and is probably going to win a striking battle with the majority of the people in the bantamweight division. He’s a Top 10 fighter that just hasn’t gotten there yet and a future contender, no question. Pickett is crafty and will bring his lunchbox, but this is a spotlight opportunity for Almeida and it is exactly what he needs at this moment.

Waterson’s arrival from Invicta FC is a positive for the strawweight division – she’s talented, marketable and adding more depth to a division that is already got a bunch of talented fighters jostling for position is never a bad thing – but this fight just does nothing for me.

Magana hasn’t won a fight since August 2011. She’s posted countless pictures of her ass on Twitter, spewed venom at numerous other competitors and given herself a nickname, but she hasn’t done anything that has made me want to see her fight again. The last person she beat (Avery Vilche) is 45 and sports a 3-7-1 (1 NC) record. In fairness, she was only 42 and 2-5-1 (1 NC) when Magana beat her back when Captain America was still just The First Avenger.

Yes, this is a “give Waterson a fight she should win” situation, but wasn’t there someone else she could fight? What’s Tina Lahdemaki doing? We haven’t seen her in nearly a year since she faced Claudia Gadelha. Is there someone from Invicta FC that could have gotten a call up? Did the UFC really need to extend Angela Magana’s 15 minutes?

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Here’s a look at all the fights that were announced over the last 14 days.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/05/10/ufc-fight-desk-the-we-cant-have-pretty-things-edition/feed/0anthony_pettis_flexkeyboardkimuraUFC Fight Desk: Dillashaw-Barao Rematch Booked… Againhttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/04/19/ufc-fight-desk-dillashaw-barao-rematch-booked-again/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/04/19/ufc-fight-desk-dillashaw-barao-rematch-booked-again/#commentsSun, 19 Apr 2015 16:00:27 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=186735]]>The UFC is hoping that the third time is the charm as the promotion announced on Tuesday that bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw and the man he beat for the title, Renan Barao, will headline this summer’s UFC on FOX event at the United Center in Chicago.

Dillashaw claimed the title from Barao at UFC 173 last May in one of the biggest upsets in recent memory. The Ultimate Fighter finalist stung the Brazilian standout early and never looked back, taking the fight to the Nova Uniao product round after round and bringing his lengthy winning streak to a halt with a fifth-round stoppage.

Since then, the tandem has been booked to fight for a second time on two different occasions. The first time, at UFC 177 last summer, Barao fainted during the final stages of his weight cut and was removed from the card. Dillashaw ended up fighting UFC newcomer Joe Soto and delivering a comparable performance to the one he crafted against Barao three months earlier, stopping the former Bellator champion in the fifth round.

They were then slotted atop next week’s UFC 186 pay-per-view in Montreal, but Dillashaw suffered a rib injury and was forced from the contest. Flyweight champ Demetrius Johnson and challenger Kyoji Horiguchi inherited the main event assignment and Montreal’s loss became Chicago’s gain.

Hopefully these two are able to stay healthy and make it to the United Center on July 25 because this rematch is starting to feel like a fight that just isn’t supposed to happen.

After Barao failed to make it to the weigh-ins at UFC 177, Dillashaw shifted his focus to other fighters in the division, but injuries to Dominick Cruz and Raphael Assuncao necessitated making the rematch for a second time. Scrapped and rescheduled yet again, if something keeps this bout from taking place this summer in Chicago, it might be time to simply move on from it for the time being.

I love fights like this – pairings between two emerging talents in a division that has solid depth at the top end, meaning neither fighter is needed as a contender at the moment and having one take a small step back isn’t the end of the world.

Brunson is 4-1 in the UFC and riding a two-fight winning streak, having most recently needed just 36 seconds to starch Ultimate Fighter Season 3 alum Ed “Short Fuse” Herman. His lone loss in the division came against Yoel Romero in a fight he controlled through the first two rounds before the mercurial Cuban turned up the pressure and stopped the Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter.

The 25-year-old Jotko is 15-1 and was initially scheduled to compete on the UFC Krakow fight card before an injury forced him to withdraw. After suffering the first loss of his professional career last May, Jotko rebounded with a dominant unanimous decision win over Tor Troeng in October.

There are no gaps in the middleweight rankings and there are already a few fighters waiting on the fringes for their opportunity to move into the Top 15. The winner of this one will join that group just outside the rankings and have a nice feather in their cap going forward.

After losing the lightweight title to Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 185 in March, “Showtime” is wasting no time getting back in the Octagon in hopes of returning to the top of the division.

The fact that Pettis is scheduled to compete for the third time in seven months is outstanding and cannot be undersold, especially given how much grief the former champion took for being sidelined for over a year after winning the belt, but the pairing with Jury is a bit of a surprise.

Prior to his last fight, the Alliance MMA product was a perfect 15-0 and making steady progress up the divisional ladder. Then he was matched up with Donald Cerrone at UFC 178, “Cowboy” shut him down, shut him out and hit him with some “F*@$ You!” kicks to close out the fight for good measure and now the 26-year-old is staring down a potential two-fight losing streak.

While anything could happen and you want to give Jury some dap for accepting the challenge of welcoming the scalded former champion back to the cage, I can’t help but question the decision to put a fighter that was on the come-up and fighting in the co-main event of a massive pay-per-view card just a handful of months ago in there with Pettis at this point in time.

Lightweight is overflowing with talented fighters and competitors that are – for lack of a better word – expendable, so why not match Pettis up with one of them rather than potentially burn Jury?

Nate Diaz was actively courting a fight with Pettis – that makes far more sense and is actually a bigger fight even though the Stockton, California native has struggled mightily over the last few years. If not Diaz, why not someone like Josh Thomson or Edson Barboza, fighters that are a little older and whose place in the division is a little more established?

# # # # #

Here’s a look at all the fights that were announced over the last seven days.

Stylish outside the cage and supremely talented inside of it, the 28-year-old Milwaukee native was coming off a dominant victory over a dangerous opponent and eager to establish himself as not only the ruler of his division, but also as the potential “Pay-Per-View King” of the company. He was the sublime American champion with personality and skill that the UFC had long coveted as one of the faces of the organization.

All that stood between him and superstardom was Brazilian challenger Rafael dos Anjos, a tough veteran of more than 15 UFC fights that few were giving much of a chance of stopping “Showtime.”

Once the Octagon door closes, however, all of that fades away.

The sponsorships and superlatives are great, but on Fight Night, all that matters is what you do when the lights come on and it’s you, your opponent and the referee sharing 750 square-feet of canvas enclosed by eight coated chain link walls.

Saturday night in Dallas, none of Pettis’ hype or the heavy odds in his favour were able to prevent dos Anjos was walking across the Octagon and physically dominating him for five five-minute intervals to claim the UFC lightweight title and turn the division on its ear.

Sometimes we don’t talk about the actual fight itself enough.

We fixate on personalities and storylines, buy rates and drawing power, forgetting that at the end of the day, two competitors are going to step into the cage and the outcome will be determined by kicks and punches, offence and defence, game plans, conditioning and at times, sheer force of will. Who brings more eyeballs to pay-per-view or generates the most traffic for MMA websites doesn’t factor into the equation, so why do we spend so much time focusing on those elements and so little time talking about the two parties that will put their skills to the test underneath the bright lights?

Immediately following dos Anjos’ dominant victory over Pettis on Saturday night, conversations about his marketability and how the UFC went from having a potential American superstar to an unheralded Brazilian veteran standing atop one of its most important divisions began.

Here’s some free advice on how to market dos Anjos going forward: he’s the UFC lightweight champion and the guy that just beat the brakes off Anthony Pettis.

It doesn’t matter that he’s not spitting venom every time he talks, sponsored by all the right brands or the owner of one of the craziest sizzle reels in the business; he’s got a shiny gold belt slung over his shoulder and has earned one-sided wins over Anthony Pettis, Nate Diaz, Benson Henderson and Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in the last 19 months. If the footage of dos Anjos beating up Pettis round after round on Saturday night in Dallas isn’t enough to convince fight fans to purchase his next fight on pay-per-view, then nothing will.

As much as the UFC exists at the intersection of sport and entertainment, how entertaining a competitor is outside of the cage is given far too much importance and what they do in the fight itself doesn’t carry enough weight. Haven’t we learned our lesson from the string of “big talk, little results” attractions like Chael Sonnen and Nick Diaz that have been hustled to the front of the line over-and-over again because of their “drawing power,” only to watch them get beaten handily time and again?

Georges St-Pierre’s fight with Diaz might have carried the most hype and anticipation, but it was one-sided wrestling match that played out how everyone knew it would. All the talk of “dark places” and bad blood didn’t change the fact that Diaz couldn’t keep the fight standing for more than 30 seconds at a time. St-Pierre’s most compelling fight in recent years, however, was his five-round clash with Johny Hendricks, the good old country boy that rarely has a bad word to say about anyone. The anticipation may not have been feverish, but the final product was significantly better.

It’s the performances that are crucial; personality is a bonus.

Take new strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk for example.

The fact that she emerged as a media darling during Fight Week was great and a definite positive for both her and the UFC, but it wouldn’t have nearly as much value or importance if she got trucked by Carla Esparza on Saturday night. Turning in a brilliant performance and stopping Esparza to claim the title is what establishes her as a “top of the marquee” competitor going forward, not the fact that she’s charming and charismatic.

Having both the performances and the personality is outstanding, but the former needs to trump the latter when we’re discussing the top competitors in the sport and handing out fight card assignments otherwise why not just slap the two most recognizable fighters you can find in the main event and go from there, even if it means sticking a couple championship fights on before them because the fans don’t think Demetrious Johnson or Jose Aldo have the personalities to headline a pay-per-view?

Dos Anjos beating Pettis so emphatically was astounding, but the new champion being capable of challenging Pettis shouldn’t have been a shock to anyone – not if you were paying attention to the stuff that really mattered.

He had won eight of his last nine, most of them handily, and morphed into a clean, complete mixed martial artist since moving to California and taking up with Master Rafael Cordeiro at Kings MMA. He was deserving of being the underdog, but not of being overlooked.

This wasn’t T.J. Dillashaw throttling Renan Barao to claim the bantamweight title coming off a win over Mike Easton; dos Anjos had beaten the No. 3 and No. 5-ranked lightweights in the division prior to his ascension to the top of the weight class on the weekend.

But he’s not boisterous or controversial. He doesn’t preen for every camera, talk about his legacy or generate record amounts of traffic, so he gets relegated to the background and viewed as an afterthought until he goes and does something like he did on Saturday night. Then everybody wants to say, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

The answer is simple: everyone was paying attention to the wrong things.

Rafael dos Anhos is your new UFC lightweight champion, turning in a masterful performance to claim the title from Anthony Pettis in the main event of UFC 185 on Saturday night in Dallas.

This was an effort on par with TJ Dillashaw’s surprise victory over Renan Barao last May – an unrelenting battering of a dominant champion that was expected to retain his title with relative ease.

Instead, it was the Brazilian who cruised to victory, bringing the fight to Pettis with kicks to the body and straight left hands in the opening two minutes. As the minute ticked by and the rounds added up, “Showtime” simply had no answers – dos Anjos ate the best shots he had to offer, took him down at will and dominated him on the mat at every turn.

From start to finish, dos Anjos was in charge, leaving Pettis battered, bloodied and bruised to walk out of the Octagon with the UFC lightweight title over his shoulder.

2. And New, Part Two

Joanna Jedrzejczyk is your new UFC women’s strawweight champion.

The Polish striker started stuffing takedowns right away and absolutely blistered Carla Esparza in the stand-up, leading to a second-round stoppage win. Now a perfect 9-0 in her career, the new champion is a superstar-in-the-making for the UFC.

Jedrzejczyk had a coming out party in the media leading up to this fight, showing the kind of charisma and personality that can draw fans in and once she hit the Octagon, the 27-year-old was crisp and clean from Jump Street, peppering Esparza at every turn and making her pay for every failed takedown attempt.

This was as good a performance as Jedrzejczyk could have hoped for – a one-sided beatdown of the champion that showcased her takedown defense and made it abundantly clear that standing with her is all kinds of dangerous.

Right now, the division is wide open and the new champion seems like the type that will be eager to put the belt on the line frequently; she genuinely seems to love the Fight Week experience and atmosphere.

That’s a huge plus for the UFC, so is having a European champion as the company continues its international expansion.

3. Johny Hendricks: No. 1 Contender

Whoever wins the welterweight title fight between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald at UFC 189 in July is going to have to face Johny Hendricks next. As much as a MacDonald victory would potentially set the stage for a trilogy fight, the dominant performance turned in by the former champion on Saturday night should cement “Bigg Rigg” as next in line.

Fighting for the first time since losing the title to Lawler by split decision in December, Hendricks turned in his most complete performance in some time, going back to his wrestling roots to ground Matt Brown and batter “The Immortal” on his way to a clean sweep of the scorecards. The always game Ohio native battled to the bitter end, searching for inverted triangle chokes off his back for most of the third round, but Hendricks defended well, kept on the offensive and got the win.

The former champion wasn’t overly pleased with his performance – he didn’t like that he couldn’t stop Brown and said there is more work to do – but then he made it clear that not only does he want next, but he plans on regaining the title that he feels he shouldn’t have lost in the first place.

Never satisfied Angry Johny is fun to watch and scary as hell for anyone in the welterweight division.

4. Two in a Row for Overeem

Seven fights into his UFC career, Alistair Overeem finally has his first two-fight winning streak after notching a unanimous decision win over Roy Nelson in Dallas.

“The Reem” used a measured, patient approach to pick apart Nelson, throwing an assortment of kicks and knees while doing his best to avoid the heavy overhand right “Big Country” is known for. At times, he jogged into space, frustrating the fans in attendance at American Airlines Center, but it was a sound strategy for the Amsterdam-based, Albuquerque-trained heavyweight. There were moments where Nelson stung Overeem, but he couldn’t follow up and the former Strikeforce champion was able to emerge with the victory.

The win puts Overeem in an interesting position. While he’s still behind several competitors in the rankings, there are few heavyweights with as much name recognition and fan support as the 34-year-old Dutch fighter. Though it probably shouldn’t be the case, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Overeem in a No. 1 contender bout next time out.

This was the best he’s looked in the UFC, so even if he’s not in a title eliminator next time out, that type of fight is no more than one win away.

5. “The Messenger” is The Real Deal

Henry Cejudo’s biggest fight this week in Dallas wasn’t his battle in the cage on Saturday; it was with the scale on Friday afternoon at weigh-ins.

Having failed to make the 125-pound flyweight limit on several occasions, including his expected Octagon debut at UFC 177, the Olympic gold medalist asked the organization to give him another shot at competing in Demetrious Johnson’s division after picking up a win at bantamweight.The UFC gave him the okay and everyone waited patiently to see what the scale said on Friday.

Cejudo made weight(with his shorts on) and then stepped into the Octagon and dominated former title challenger Chris Cariaso in the opening bout of the UFC 185 main card.

This was another statement performance for the freestyle wrestling standout, who instantly becomes a contender in the flyweight ranks. He controlled the action from the outset, continuing to show quality striking and dominating in the clinch and on the canvas.

It was another one-sided effort and one that should put Cejudo on the fast track to a title shot going forward.

6. Canada’s Next UFC Star

Georges St-Pierre is the past, Rory MacDonald is the present and Elias Theodorou is the future – that’s how it stacks up in the Octagon as far as Canadian fighters go.

The charismatic Mississauga native continued his unbeaten run to start his career Saturday in Dallas, picking up a second-round stoppage win over Roger Narvaez in the penultimate bout of the preliminary card. After a close first round, “The Spartan” kept the pressure on, ultimately snapping Narvaez’ left arm with a high kick and pounding out the finish.

He then told Joe Rogan that “fear was not a factor tonight.”

Theodorou, who won the middleweight competition on TUF: Nations, gets it – he’s engaging and well-spoken, hustles to create media opportunities and he’s continually getting better in the cage. The 26-year-old middleweight hasn’t even been fighting for four years yet and he’s already 11-0 and 3-0 in the UFC.

As he continues to gain experience and more time in the gym, Theodorou has the potential to develop into a star in the 185-pound division.

7. This Week’s Breakout Lightweight is…

Every event, a new lightweight delivers an impressive performance and becomes someone to track in the UFC’s deepest, most competitive division. This weekend in Dallas, that fighter was Beneil Dariush.

A training partner of title challenger Rafael dos Anjos and decorated grappler, Dariush picked up the biggest win of his career, pressing the pace and securing a rear naked choke against Darren Cruickshank in the second round. Now 4-1 in the UFC and riding a three-fight winning streak, the Kings MMA product still has room to grow.

Dariush has the potential to follow a path similar to the one taken by his training partner and friend dos Anjos. He’s not as athletic as the Brazilian, but he’s a very cerebral fighter that doesn’t make many mistakes in the cage, much like dos Anjos and his grappling skills are elite. As he continues to hone his striking skills, the Iranian lightweight could emerge as a contender.

Keep an eye on him.

8. Comeback City

Fighting for the first time in 16 months and before a hometown crowd in Dallas, Ryan Benoit’s night didn’t start off so well. Throughout the first round, “Baby Face” found himself on the business end of the exchanges with Sergio Pettis, getting out-quicked and lumped up over the initial five minutes. Even when he was able to take Pettis down, the younger brother of the UFC lightweight champion was able to reverse and do damage from top position.

It was more of the same early in the second, as Pettis continued to land the better shots standing and then BOOM!

Left hook. Jaw. Buckle. Drop. Done.

Standing in the center of the Octagon, both men delivered hooks and Benoit’s landed first and hardest, taking the legs out from underneath him and gave Benoit the opening needed to finish the fight. As the fight was waved off and Benoit stood up to celebrate, he gave Pettis a kick in the butt, literally.

It wasn’t hard or malicious in intent, but it was stupid and uncalled for which means Joe Rogan turned it in to something that diminished Benoit’s entire performance because of course he did. To his credit, the 25-year-old apologized right away and admitted his mistake.

Regardless of the final kick, this was a tremendous comeback and victory for Benoit.

9. Joseph Duffy: Instant Impression

Being “The Last Man to Defeat Conor McGregor” garnered Joseph Duffy a great deal of attention heading into his UFC debut, even though the Donegal, Ireland native had done more than tap “The Notorious” more four years ago. At UFC 185, “Irish Joe” gave fight fans something different to talk about.

Duffy came out swinging against Jake Lindsey, landing two clean left hooks right out of the gate. He continued stocking the Kansas native, showcasing his smooth boxing before planting his left shin across Lindsey’s temple. Recognizing Lindsey was stunned, Duffy pressed forward and buried a digging left hand to the solar plexus that dropped “The Librarian” to the canvas and prompted referee Herb Dean to wave things off.

The victory pushed Duffy’s record to 13-1 and immediately puts him on the radar in the UFC. This was as impressive a debut as you can have on the big stage – a 90-second destruction that validates all the pre-fight hype and positions you for bigger and better right out of the chute.

10. Larissa Pacheco: Sacrificial Lamb

Having entered the UFC with an unbeaten record and tons of promise, Larissa Pachecho has been fed to the wolves since. Saturday night, the 20-year-old Brazilian was handed her second consecutive tough assignment, pitted against veteran Germaine de Randamie in the opening bout of the evening.

For the second straight outing, Pacheco’s inexperience at the elite level was exposed, as “The Iron Lady” landed at will while working at range, lighting up Pacheco in the first and putting her out in the second. A stiff right uppercut was the beginning of the end, as you could see Pacheco wincing after it landed and de Randamie didn’t let off the gas until the fight was stopped.

Hopefully the UFC keeps Pacheco around and gives her a chance to develop without continually throwing her into the deep end of the talent pool in the women’s bantamweight division.

She has potential, but she’s still green, so running her into the Octagon against experienced, ranked foes is detrimental to her development. There is “learning how to lose” and then there losing fights that you really shouldn’t be in to begin with.

The ironic thing is that the UFC usually does a very good job of shielding prospects and getting them into winnable fights out of the gate. Unfortunately that hasn’t applied to Pacheco and the Brazilian is now reeling as a result.

January and February come and gone and Patrick has a massive 10-fight lead in the 2015 Keyboard Kimura Punch Drunk Prediction standings. 10 fights! Most of that advantage has come from preliminary card bouts, where I’ve been willing to side with a few underdogs and paid the price as a result, but all that changes from here on out.

It’s a new month and we’re heading in a new direction – my comeback starts now!

These are the UFC 185 Punch Drunk Predictions.

Anthony Pettis vs. Rafael dos Anjos

Patrick: Before his fight with Gilbert Melendez at UFC 181, I wasn’t completely sold on Pettis as a 155-pounder who was going to have longevity as the UFC lightweight champion. After his fight with Melendez, however, I was ready to eat everything bad I ever had to say about “Showtime.”

Melendez is easily one of the toughest lightweights in the UFC and Pettis was able to choke him out in under 10 minutes utilizing his high-level submission game that many people forget about because of his dynamic striking.

Rafael dos Anjos is a great opponent with wins in eight of his last nine fights. Possessing a great Brazilian jiu-jitsu base, the 30-year-old has also improved his striking exponentially as of late and could certainly give Pettis some trouble if he pressures him early in the fight. That said, I think Pettis is far too dangerous from everywhere and keeps improving with every fight. Look for a later round finish for “Showtime” in his second title defense.

Prediction: Anthony Pettis by TKO, Round 4

ESK: I now realize it’s going to be tough for me to make a comeback when we’re going to be picking a lot of the same fighters. Sigh…

I think dos Anjos makes this tougher than people expect for all the reasons Patrick pointed out above and because he’s not a guy that makes a lot of mistakes or leaves a lot of openings inside the Octagon. He’s a pretty clean fighter in that regard and that will mean Pettis will have to work a little harder to earn his second consecutive successful title defense. But he’ll get it.

Pettis is one of those fighters that people are only going to truly appreciate after he’s been in a couple drawn out battles and this could be one of them. He’s finished his last four opponents so impressively that casual observers and skeptics are always going to wonder “how would he do against someone that doesn’t give him an opening?” as if “Showtime” is simply blasting a batting practice fastball into the stands every time out.

A hard-fought, gruelling battle gets him another win and a little more respect.

Prediction: Anthony Pettis by Unanimous Decision

Carla Esparza vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk

Patrick: After derailing the hype train of Rose Namajunas in the TUF 20 finale, Esparza proved herself as the best women’s strawweight fighter in the UFC thanks to her strong wrestling pedigree that was able to shut out the young fireplug.

Jedrzejczyk is a very tough fighter with strong striking coming straight outta Poland (represent!) and she was able to pull out a hard-fought split decision victory over Claudia Gadelha in December. While I think JJ will give Esparza some issues in the striking department, I like the wrestler to dictate most of the pace in this one for her first title defense.

Prediction: Carla Esparza by Unanimous Decision

ESK: I like that you threw a “represent!” in there, but have no interest in picking the Polish fighter; a smooth “I see you… but you’re not winning” move that helps illustrate why you have such a commanding lead in this competition and a great pick’em percentage overall right now.

I honestly think this is a fairly one-sided fight – it’s not that I think poorly of Jedrzejczyk, it’s just that I believe Esparza’s wrestling and her ability blend her striking into her grappling is vastly superior to the challenger’s straightforward striking game and the champion will put her on her butt repeatedly en route to a unanimous decision win. Esparza is too smart and too talented to get drawn into a brawl, which is the only path to victory I see for Jedrzejczyk.

Prediction: Carla Esparza by Unanimous Decision

Johny Hendricks vs. Matt Brown

Patrick: I’m still not 100% sure how we got from Hendricks being the UFC welterweight champion to him fighting for another title shot later this year, but I like fighters with hunger and the 31-year-old has plenty of that. We know he’s got great wrestling and launches bombs but conditioning has held him back in the past and it’s something he needs to master in order to reclaim the title he once held.

Brown is Brown. Tough as hell and constant forward pressure. He loves to stand and exchange and doesn’t care how powerful his opponent dishing out punishment is. That will be a problem here, he’s going to get tagged by Hendricks and it will hurt him. A lot. I know we’ve never seen “The Immortal” get laid out, but I see that streak coming to an end in devastating fashion here.

Prediction: Johny Hendricks by KO, Round 3

ESK: This should be pretty similar to Brown’s fight with Robbie Lawler last summer, where “The Immortal” yet again showed that he is game as all get-out, but not quite on the same level as the absolute best in the division. And for the record: I still think Hendricks is the absolute best in the division. He didn’t look great against Lawler in their second encounter, but I still think he did enough to win the fight and retain his title.

That said, I like that he lost because it has lit a fire under his ass and that should result in fireworks here. I’m not sure Hendricks can stopped Brown cold, but he’s going to try early and often and will ultimately come away with the win.

Prediction: Johny Hendricks by Unanimous Decision

Roy Nelson vs. Alistair Overeem

Patrick: Overeem has been so hit and miss lately that it’s basically become a guessing game to see which version of the former Strikeforce heavyweight champion will show up on any given night. He still moves very well and his striking is top notch, but his chin still seems to be made out of glass.

We last saw “Big Country” on the receiving end of a nasty Mark Hunt knockout in September and losses in three of his last four fights doesn’t look great on the resume. It’s become very apparent that his formula is to land a massive overhand shots in hopes of putting opponents to sleep early. I think Overeem moves better and will find out to tire out the slower and more physically underwhelming Nelson to earn a decision.

Prediction: Alistair Overeem by Unanimous Decision

ESK: I’m really tempted to pick Nelson here because he packs thunder in his right hand and Overeem crumbles every time he gets clipped. It’s not “he’s dazed and needs to recover” either; it is absolutely a “this dude is 12 seconds away from getting finished because he has no idea where he is right now” situation.

But Nelson tires after about three minutes and his movement is best described as “plodding,” which makes it very easy to employ a stick-and-move strategy against him. As long as “Big Country” doesn’t land some big power out of the gate, Overeem should be able to avoid the telegraphed overhand rights that come every 30-45 seconds once Nelson gasses. From there, it just becomes a question of whether or not Overeem goes for the kill or rides out a decision.

Prediction: Alistair Overeem by Unanimous Decision

Chris Cariaso vs. Henry Cejudo

Patrick: Fresh off a title fight against Demetrius Johnson at UFC 178, Cariaso is a durable flyweight fighter with a solid overall game and a fair amount of toughness that gets him through some difficult situations at times.

Cejudo is an undefeated mixed martial artist and former Olympic gold medalist in wrestling who looked great in his bantamweight debut against Dustin Kimura in December. He’s had trouble cutting to 125-pounds in the past, but if the 28-year-old can do so and not give up too much stamina, this will be a long night for Cariaso.

Prediction: Henry Cejudo by Unanimous Decision

ESK: Cejudo is going to have more trouble with making the flyweight limit than he is facing Cariaso, which is a frustrating commentary on both Cejudo’s lack of professionalism when it comes to his new combat sport of choice and the dearth of talent in the flyweight division beyond the Top 5.

As long as the Olympic gold medalist makes weight, he cruises – Cejudo is that damn talented and should probably get fast-tracked to a title shot if he’s able to hit 125 Friday afternoon and pick up another dominant win on Saturday evening.

Saturday’s UFC 185 pay-per-view is stacked – two title fights, a former champion, heavyweight face-punching and an Olympic gold medalist who is also one of the best prospects in the sport. This fight card crushes last month’s offering, even if Anthony Pettis hasn’t reached “Rockstar Rousey” levels yet because the depth of talent stepping into the cage in Dallas is significantly greater than the likes of Alan Jouban, Jake Ellenberger and Holly Holm.

Need further convincing? Keep reading.

Here are 5 Reasons to Watch UFC 185 this weekend.

1. Showtime

If you don’t consider Anthony Pettis must-see viewing by this point, I don’t know what to tell you. The UFC lightweight champion is a blend of power and speed, technical mastery and creative brilliance unlike anything we’ve seen in the Octagon before. If what he does isn’t all that special, why don’t we see more people doing it as flawlessly as the 28-year-old titleholder?

Fresh off a second-round submission win over Gilbert Melendez and fighting for the second time in three months, “Showtime” has a bit of a chip on his shoulder and that can only be a good thing for fight fans. He wants to be a superstar, wants to be a major pay-per-view draw for the UFC and wants to silence all the critics that continually ask him about his injury history, training habits and how the two are related. The only way he’s going to accomplish all that is to show and prove and that’s what he’s focused on doing Saturday night in “Big D.”

This bout isn’t as high profile as his previous encounter with Melendez – there is no TUF season leading he and Rafael dos Anjos into the Octagon and many consider the Brazilian to be a fill-in option for the injured Khabib Nurmagomedov, who beat dos Anjos last year, but was unable to make this weekend’s date due to a knee injury suffered last September.

But here’s the thing: dos Anjos is a much more dangerous matchup than he’s getting credit for and is a tougher out than people understand. He’s a fighter that doesn’t make many mistakes and has numerous way he can beat you. He’s got power in his hands and very good Muay Thai overall, excellent jiu jitsu and a proven ability to put over-aggressive strikers on their backs and grind them out. See Cerrone, Donald.

He’s only been stopped twice in his career – once by a jaw injury and once by Jeremy Stephens’ Street Fighter II uppercut in his UFC debut. That’s it. So if Pettis can step into the cage and hand a stoppage loss on dos Anjos, that’s saying something and help the lightweight champ in his quest to become the “The PPV King of the UFC.” And Pettis is capable of finishing pretty much anyone in any number of ways.

Even if he doesn’t get the finish, Pettis will try something or land something that makes you lose your mind and shout at the television and guys that that are always worthy paying to see.

2. Early Opportunity for Esparza, Jedrzejcyzk

Carla Esparza has an opportunity to solidify her standing as the UFC women’s strawweight champ on Saturday night.

She hasn’t gotten anywhere near the attention some of the other female fighters on the roster have received despite having UFC gold around her waist and entering off a one-sided championship victory over Rose Namajunas back in December. “The Cookie Monster” completely dominated the hyped prospect and could very well do the same against Joanna Jedrzejczyk this weekend at UFC 185.

Esparza is a standout wrestler (at least for this division) and has got to be getting pretty tired of listening to people retroactively pick at her win over Namajunas and holster their praise for her heading into this fight. She’s getting a version of “The Demetrious Johnson Treatment” where lack of interest in the division causes people to not give the champion their due. Esparza is an elite competitor, a deserving champion and someone that could very well reign over this division for some time.

Of course, Jedrzejczyk has other plans, including saving everyone the trouble of learning how to pronounce her last name by winning the title and being referred to as “Joanna Champion.”

The Polish Muay Thai specialist has picked up a pair of victories in the UFC to arrive in Saturday championship co-main event, first beating Julianna Lima in a frustrating affair that featured a lot of grinding on the fence and then in a close (controversial?) split decision against Claudia Gadelha the night after Esparza won the belt back in December. She’s pushes the pace and is always looking for opportunities to strike, which keeps her coming forward and looking good in the eyes of the judges.

What will be crucial for the challenger is keeping the fight standing. She was able to do that against Lima and for the most part against Gadelha as well, but they’re both jiu jitsu-based grapplers, where Esparza is more of a “shoot a double and put you on your ass” wrestler. Conditioning could be a factor as well, as prepping for a five-round championship fight is old hat to Esparza, but a new experience to the challenger.

Regardless of who emerges victorious, don’t be surprised if these ladies steal the show.

3. Welterweight Violence

In one corner, you’ve got Matt Brown, a blue-collared, iron-willed, adamantium-jawed bringer of violence; a dude that has been beaten and battered time and again, only to pick himself up off the canvas, shake out the cobwebs and go back on the offensive, earning the victory more often than naught as of late.

In the other corner, you’ve got Johny Hendricks, the former champion fighting in his adopted hometown and the arena where he experienced his greatest professional triumph; a guy that has re-commited himself to being the bigger, stronger man in the cage and is on a mission to get the welterweight title back come Hell or high water.

After prepping for five-round, main event fights their last few appearances, these boys only get 15 minutes to work on Saturday night and you best believe they’ll be slinging leather at a freakish pace from the word “Go.”

There is no way this fight isn’t a good old fashioned slobberknocker – Brown doesn’t know anything else and Hendricks is sick of letting the judges decide his fate, having come out on the wrong side of the cards in two of his last three outings. Dropping a close decision sucks; dropping a close decision when there is gold on the line is a kick in the pills and “Bigg Rigg” is fixing to make sure he leaves no doubt who the better man is when she’s all said and done on Saturday night.

4. Somebody is Getting Knocked the #$%@ Out!

The last four words of that title have to be said in the manner below (NSFW):

Roy Nelson and Alistair Overeem both need this win, both have ways to win this fight and both have ways to lose this fight as well and that’s what makes it intriguing – that and heavyweight fights are always intriguing because there is something compelling about two behemoths trying to put each other to sleep.

Overeem is coming off a first-round knockout win over Stefan Struve, but has been prone to getting tagged and stopped by guys with big power. The Las Vegas native Nelson has dynamite in his mitts, but you can see his overhand right coming from a mile away and after about three minutes of swinging and missing, “Big Country” is a big, tired target. On top of that, Nelson was on the receiving end of a Mark Hunt walk-off knockout last time out, so he’s looking to rebound in a big way.

As Paul Chapman and I talk about on the Keyboard Kimura Podcast regularly – an active, entertaining heavyweight division is crucial for the UFC and Overeem (a) hasn’t fought Cain Velasquez as of yet and (b) has the name recognition to be a good draw, despite his overall inconsistency in the UFC thus far, so there is a lot riding on this fight for the former Strikeforce champion too.

If those goes beyond the opening round, I’ll be shocked.

5. Introducing Henry Cejudo

Saturday night will be the Olympic gold medalist’s large-scale introduction to the UFC after missing weight in his first attempt at debut in the flyweight ranks and being relegated to the prelims in a bantamweight match-up in his actual debut.

The 28-year-old wrestler has had tons of issues making the 125-pound limit, but asked Dana White & Co. to give him one more chance at fighting in the flyweight division and the UFC brass has given him enough rope to hang himself. If Cejudo misses the mark on Friday afternoon, he’ll be undergoing a “Gastelum-Lineker Procedure” where his division of choice stops being up for discussion.

Setting aside the weight class situation, Cejudo is a tremendous prospect – he showed very good hands in his bantamweight win over Dustin Kimura, his wrestling is truly world-class and his ability to speak fluent Spanish makes him a potential superstar as the UFC expands into the Latin American market. Oh yeah, plus it never hurts to have Olympic gold medalists thriving in your organization.

Cejudo gets an opportunity to make an immediate impact in the flyweight division at UFC 185, squaring off with former title challenger Chris Cariaso. “Kamikaze” is a well-rounded veteran with solid striking and good grappling; he’s the kind of litmus test a guy like Cejudo needs at this point. If he can make weight and earn the win, the unbeaten newcomer could find himself on the fast track to a title shot.

Of course, he could also miss weight and be forced from the card again too, but we’re thinking positive thoughts. Positive and skinny thoughts.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/03/11/ufc-185-5-reasons-to-watch-saturdays-loaded-ppv/feed/0anthony_pettis_presserkeyboardkimuraUFC 185 Title View: Anthony Pettis and the Lightweight Divisionhttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/03/09/ufc-185-title-view-anthony-pettis-and-the-lightweight-division/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/03/09/ufc-185-title-view-anthony-pettis-and-the-lightweight-division/#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 04:30:32 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=182378]]>After yesterday’s look at Carla Esparza, Joanna Jedrzejczyk and the women’s strawweight division, it’s time for UFC Title View to focus in on the lightweight ranks, beginning with the champion and the man that challenges him this weekend at UFC 185 in Dallas.

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UFC Title View: Lightweight Division

Pettis’ last two appearances showed why he’s such a dangerous fighter and potentially dominant champion as he won and retained the lightweight belt by capitalizing on the one small mistake his opponents in those two outings made and secured the victories.

Against Benson Henderson at UFC 164, “Showtime” snatched up an armbar when “Smooth” gave him an inch, forcing his former WEC rival to tap. Against Gilbert Melendez at UFC 181, it was more of the same, as Pettis weathered the early storm and clipped the former Strikeforce champion when he got a little loose with his striking. As Melendez shot in for an “I’m rocked and need to recover” takedown, the opportunistic Duke Roufus disciple locked up a guillotine choke and drew the tap from “El Nino.”

That ability to create openings and chances to finish fights is one of the many things that makes Pettis the kind of fighter that could enjoy a lengthy reign atop the dangerous lightweight division. Whether it’s his striking or his submission game, the 28-year-old titleholder always seems like he’s able to find a way to swing the fight in his favour and give himself a chance to get the finish. Few fighters are capable of doing that every time they step into the cage and Pettis makes it look easy, even when he’s doing something ridiculous like propelling himself off the fence to land a knee to the body against Donald Cerrone.

Pettis’ creative will continue to give him an edge over the competition as well because it’s impossible to prepare for the array of offense that is going to be coming at you once you step into the cage with the reigning lightweight champion. When he’s being the aggressor, Pettis keeps you guessing and that hampers a fighter’s ability to establish their own rhythm and flow. What makes the challenge of dethroning him even harder is that he might be even better when he’s looking to counter and letting his opponents dictate the pace and tempo because the power/speed combo he presents in the striking department means he’s able to wait for an opening and turn a fight on a dime with the right shot.

The one ever-so-slight question mark that remains with Pettis is his takedown defense.

While he’s certainly shored things up since losing his UFC debut to Clay Guida, getting inside and forcing Pettis to fend off takedown attempts still appears to be the preferred way to try to beat the Milwaukee native. Melendez had some success by backing Pettis into the cage and making him defend and it’s one of the many reasons that a potential fight between the champion and unbeaten grappler Khabib Nurmagomedov holds so much interest. It’s a part of the fabric of Saturday’s fight too as dos Anjos has shown an ability to ground strikers in the past and grind out wins when he needs to.

That being said, we’ve seen tremendous improvement from Pettis in this area over the last three years and change and if the only knock against him is that he doesn’t have perfect takedown defense, that’s pretty good. His diverse and dangerous striking repertoire and underrated submission game could keep him on atop the lightweight division for a long time and even if he does get forced from the throne, he won’t ever be too far removed from contention.

There might not be a fighter in the UFC that stands as a better testament to growth, development and the importance of training with an elite team than dos Anjos.

When the Brazilian title challenger began his career in the big leagues, dos Anjos looked like a solid addition to the lightweight ranks, but not someone that was going to challenge for top honours in the division. He was excellent on the ground, but his entries on takedowns weren’t anything special and his striking was good, but nothing that really made you take notice. He lost his first two fights and was an even 3-3 after his first six appearances, beating lower tier talents, but struggling against anyone of real substance.

Everything started to change with his fight against George Sotiropoulos at UFC 132. He had moved to California and started training with Master Rafael Cordeiro at Kings MMA on a permanent basis, and the improvements in his striking were readily apparent. A minute into the bout, dos Anjos dropped the Aussie with a counter right hook that snapped across his jaw. Sotiropoulos was out and the Brazilian had arrived as an interesting fringe contender.

Since then, dos Anjos has only continued to improve. He’s added some muscle and tightened up his striking even more, becoming a truly well-rounded mixed martial artist. His wrestling is far superior to where it was when he debuted against Jeremy Stephens and his jiu jitsu remains as dangerous as anyone in the division, even if we haven’t seen it as much in recent bouts. He is absolutely a worthy title challenger and a legitimate top tier talent in the lightweight division.

Can he beat Pettis? Absolutely he could – we’ve seen dos Anjos surprise in the underdog role in the past (Sotiropoulos, Benson Henderson) and he had tremendous success using his grappling to nullify the striking of Donald Cerrone when they fought two years ago. While Pettis is on a different level than “Cowboy” – or at least where “Cowboy” was at that time – the fact that dos Anjos has shown an ability to neutralize strikers and grind out wins along the fence and on the ground should serve him well heading into Saturday’s main event.

Do I think he’s going to beat Pettis? No, but I do believe this is going to be a much closer fight than most people envision. Of course, I said the same thing of Ronda Rousey and Cat Zingano and that lasted 14 seconds, so who knows.

The Contenders

Any conversation of the contenders in the lightweight division has to start with Khabib Nurmagomedov (22-0, 6-0 UFC). The 26-year-old standout holds a win over dos Anjos and is the consensus No. 1 contender, but a knee injury forced him to go under the knife and put him on the sidelines, allowing dos Anjos to jump to the head of the line. Nurmagomedov is scheduled to return in May and – as mentioned above – is the most intriguing stylistic matchup for Pettis given his outstanding grappling skills. He controlled dos Anjos throughout their 15-minute fight last April and set a record for takedowns when he faced Abel Trujillo at UFC 160, rag-dolling the former NAIA All-American around the Octagon.

Standing between Nurmagomedov and a title shot in May will be Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone (27-6, 14-3 UFC), who has rattled off seven consecutive victories since November 2013 and appears to have found his happy place. The long-time Team Jackson-Winkeljohn representative and owner of the BMF Ranch (I’ll let you figure it out) has been on-point for much of the last year-and-a-half since losing to dos Anjos. Save for his questionable decision win over Benson Henderson, Cerrone has handled his business against a string of very good fighters to put himself one win away from fighting for UFC gold.

As much as people would like to write him off, you can’t forget about Benson Henderson (22-5, 10-3 UFC), who rebounded from his loss to Cerrone with a fourth-round submission win over Brandon Thatch in his welterweight debut a month later. Just this past weekend, “Smooth” was lobbying for the opportunity to step up against Erick Silva when Ben Saunders was scratched from his bout with the Brazilian next weekend. Because he had a string of close, coin-flip fights, people want to dismiss Henderson as a viable threat in the division, but he’s only lost three times inside the Octagon – once to the champion, once to the man challenging him this weekend, and once to one of the two men battle to be next in line. That’s not too shabby and if the MMA Lab product gets a couple good wins under his belt (in any weight class), he’ll be right back in the mix.

Michael Johnson (16-8, 8-4 UFC) put himself in the contender conversation with a one-sided decision win over Edson Barboza last month in Brazil, returning from nearly a year on the shelf to pick up his fourth consecutive victory. While he’s the one man on this list without a truly marquee win, that’s the only thing keeping him from already being considered for a title fight. That being said, if he gets his wish for a date with Henderson, a victory there would propel him onto the short list of potential championship challengers. Johnson has good power and outstanding footwork when striking, paired with solid wrestling and a good amount of swagger. He’s righted the ship after back-to-back losses earlier in his UFC run and looks poised to become a legitimate threat in the lightweight division going forward.

The Ones to Watch

There is no shortage of emerging talent in the lightweight division, so let’s do one Top 15 fighter that is one the rise, one fighter that is closing in on the Top 15, and another fighter with a couple wins under his belt and a ton of upside.

Al Iaquinta (11-3-1, 6-2 UFC) has won three straight to crack the Top 15 in the lightweight division, and if not for a brief, but costly mental lapse against Mitch Clarke, the Serra-Longo Fight Team member would be riding a seven-fight winning streak and would probably be on the above list of contenders and not hanging out here. That being said, the loss was actually a good thing for “Ragin’ Al” because it showed him that he can’t take guys lightly or lose focus in a fight and he’s looked crisp since, blasting his way through Rodrigo Damm, Ross Pearson and Joe Lauzon to set up an April bout with Jorge Masvidal that will likely propel the winner into the Top 10.

Gilbert Burns (9-0, 2-0 UFC) had the fight he needed to win to break into the Top 15 all lined up for later this month – a co-main event showdown with former Strikeforce champ Josh Thomson – but then “The Punk” got hurt and was forced to pull out, leaving “Durinho” to face a relative unknown and wait a little longer. A gold medalist at the 2011 Mundials and a two-time world champion in no gi jiu jitsu, the Team Blackzilians representative is a fierce grappler with developing hands and a ton of room to grow as a mixed martial artist. The fact that he works with an elite team and is world class on the mats bodes well for him though, as he has the pieces in place to become a force in the division in the future.

Jake Matthews (8-0, 2-0 UFC) is a 20-year-old that everyone should be watching. “The Celtic Kid” was part of Team Australia on TUF: Nations and has earned a pair of stoppage wins since returning to the Octagon after departing the show. He’s built like a truck and looks like a plus athlete from the way he moves in the cage, so the sky is the limit for the young Aussie.

It will be interesting to see if he opts to keep training at home or makes the move to the US in order to maximize his opportunities. While he’s being brought along slowly and has only fought on “hometown cards” thus far, he’ll eventually get a significant step up in competition and a fight outside of Australia/New Zealand, which will be the big test of where he’s at. Personally, having talked to him a few times, I can tell you that I think he’s got the mental makeup to be a champion one day – just a driven, motivated kid that knows what he wants and understands everything that has to go into accomplishing his dreams.

You don’t climb to the top of the UFC lightweight division and successfully defend the title three times by happenstance. You don’t take up permanent residence in the Top 5 of what is widely considered the deepest, most competitive collection of talent in the most prestigious organization in the sport if you’re anything less than elite. You don’t move up a division and submit a dangerous opponent in his own backyard, on short notice no less, if you’re not someone that deserves to be discussed among the best in the sport right now.

But somewhere between his championship loss to Anthony Pettis and Saturday night’s impressive submission win over Brandon Thatch, we lost sight of how talented and accomplished “Smooth” actually is.

We focused on the close decisions that fell in his favour, but didn’t give him credit for the most recent one that counted against him. We looked at a UFC career comprised of mostly decisions without remembering how dominant some of those outings were or acknowledging that his most recent victory was a slick finish of a dangerous grappler. We saw a man that had lost three of his last five fights changing divisions and a fighter grasping for a way to jumpstart a stalled career instead of remembering those losses came against three of the best lightweights in the world and that the move up in weight was something Henderson had been pondering for quite some time.

Heading into Saturday’s bout, he was pegged as a man that might be on the downside of his career. Coming out of this weekend’s event in Broomfield, Colorado, he’s being celebrated for his gutsy performance and retroactively praised for all he’d accomplished prior to picking up a win in the welterweight division.

Turns out the reports of Henderson’s demise and diminished standing as one of the best in the sport today had been an exaggeration.

MMA as a whole is too reactionary – we’re too quick to want to shuffle up the rankings and put too much weight on each victory or defeat.

Ray Borg beat an unranked Chris Kelades Saturday night and a few “Future Champion!” tweets splashed my timeline, as if scoring a third-round submission win over a 33-year-old Canadian with just 10 fights under his belt is an automatic harbinger of things to come for the 21-year-old Albuquerque native. While there is no denying “The Tazmexican Devil” has upside and is absolutely a prospect to keep tabs on, let’s see how he does against a Top 15 opponent before we start declaring him a future UFC champion.

It works the opposite way too, which is where Henderson comes in.

UFC 164 somehow managed to establish Anthony Pettis as a dominant force in the lightweight division while simultaneously relegating the man he beat for the UFC lightweight title to “he was never that good to begin with” status. It was more of the same following his narrow win over Josh Thomson and as soon as he lost to Rafael dos Anjos, it was proof that “Smooth” just wasn’t as good as people thought. Of course, it was also used to bolster the Brazilian’s standing in the division as well, because that’s how it works.

Except it doesn’t… or at least it shouldn’t.

Benson Henderson should still be the top-ranked contender in the lightweight division, except he’s currently sitting at No. 5. Rafael dos Anjos is at No. 1 ahead of Khabib Nurmagomedov, who beat him last April on FOX. Donald Cerrone is No. 3, although Henderson is still up 2-1 in their head-to-head series even after “Cowboy” scored a questionable decision win a month back in Boston. Gilbert Melendez resides at No. 4, one spot ahead of the former lightweight champion, despite the fact that Henderson got the nod when the two went toe-to-toe for UFC gold less than two years ago.

Yes, wins and losses have to carry weight, but they don’t have to produce drastic changes to the rankings and significant shifts in the way we perceive fighters. The most recent results aren’t the only results that matter and can’t be examined in a vacuum. There are myriad factors involved in each fight, each result and they need to be taken into consideration when assessing where an athlete stands in comparison to everyone around them.

We need to stop overreacting to each individual performance and judging everything as either the best or worst ever, taking into account everything that carried us to that particular fight and remembering there is plenty of room between epic and awful. Everyone agrees that MMA math doesn’t work, but more often than naught we still suss out where a fighter stands in based on “he beat him, but that guy beat him, so that puts him ahead of him, but behind him, which makes him fourth aaaaaaaaaand done!”

Henderson’s win was unexpected because he was stepping up in weight against a dangerous opponent on short notice, not because he isn’t an outstanding fighter.

We’re too quick to heap praise on winners and similarly hasty in dismissing losing fighters as well, almost as if we forget that one result can’t exist without the other.

The build was unlike any fight in recent memory, but in the end, the UFC 182 played out similarly to the majority of Jon Jones’ fights inside the Octagon, as the reigning, defending, undisputed UFC light heavyweight champion delivered another dominant effort to retain his title and turn back the challenge of the previously unbeaten Daniel Cormier.

While the 49-46 scores across the board don’t indicate how close this was heading into the championship rounds, it was those final two frames where the fight was decided, as Jones took the fight to Cormier, dumping “DC” on the canvas not once, but twice in succession along the cage. As he’s done with impressive frequency, Jones won this fight playing to his challenger’s strengths, happily engaging Cormier in close and along the cage, embracing the grind and coming away unbroken, as his signature Reebok t-shirt read after the bout.

Cormier had his moments – he landed some solid blows inside, utilizing his dirty boxing to touch up Jones with uppercuts in winning the second frame and keeping it close through three. But as the fourth started, it was clear that the former Olympian didn’t have the gas tank to maintain the torrid pace that had been set over the first 15 minutes and from there, it was all Jones. The final two frames felt like “Bones” toying with Cormier, content to simply make his rival work and carry his weight, putting him on the canvas and clipping him with elbows in close with surprising ease.

This was another virtuoso performance from the light heavyweight champion and one that raises the stakes on the upcoming fight between Alexander Gustafsson and Anthony “Rumble” Johnson just a little more.

2. The GOAT

Jon Jones is the best fighter in the history of the sport, period. Stop trying to argue otherwise.

Saturday night, the 27-year-old champion picked up his eighth straight successful title defense, his 12th consecutive victory and he’s an outstanding 21-1 for his career. At UFC 182, he dominated a man that had not unanimously lost a round in his career – a two-time former Olympian that came in 15-0 with tremendous performances at heavyweight and light heavyweight, and when the pressure rounds began, Jones pulled ahead with ease.

If not for that shady disqualification loss to Matt Hamill – I still think the dislocated shoulder, not the elbows, is what did him in – “Bones” would have just equalled Anderson Silva’s record of 16 straight victories inside the Octagon… and he’s only 27. He’s got another 7.5 years of fighting (max) left according to his stated desire to retire by age 35 and so far, no one has been able to actually beat him. He’s faced an unmatched collection of challengers along the way and turned them all back, most with relative ease. Even when he has been pressed, Jones has risen to the occasion.

He has one of the best Fight IQs in the game and is a legitimate once-in-a-lifetime talent that has pretty much cleaned out what was – prior to his ascension – one of the most competitive and talent-rich divisions in the sport.

You don’t have to like him, but the fact of the matter remains: Jon Jones is the greatest fighter of all time.

3. Cormier vows to return

Despite suffering a heartbreaking loss on Saturday night, Daniel Cormier vowed not only to return, but to stand across the cage from Jones again in the future.

Asked to detail his feelings in the moment at the post-fight press conference, Cormier fought back tears, stopping his answer to gather his breath a couple different times. Knowing everything he’s been through athletically and personally, it’s hard not to feel for him – working to be great at something and repeatedly coming up just short is a tougher pill to swallow than those that have never tried to be great at anything can understand.

Every vanquished contender says they’ll go back to the gym, get better and return to face the champion again, but few ever accomplish that feat. Having said that, if there is anyone that is going to do it, Cormier is the guy. He’s become one of the best light heavyweights in the sport today in five years and looked good early in his fight with Jones. Give him a couple weeks to heal up and hang out, but then you can be sure “DC” will be back in the gym, back on the grind, and back on the path to a rematch with Jones.

4. Cowboy saddles up

Angry Donald Cerrone is even more fun to watch than baseline crusty Donald Cerrone and we saw that on Saturday night when “Cowboy” unleashed a series of hellacious kicks to the backside of Myles Jury in the final seconds of their co-main event encounter.

Cerrone took control of the fight early, surprising Jury with an omoplata attempt right out of the gate before transitioning to his back and searching for a choke for the majority of the round. It seemed – and Dana White echoed this at the press conference – that the opening round stifled Jury, as the previously unbeaten fighter couldn’t muster any meaningful offense over the next 10 minutes. He landed here and there, but Cerrone dictated the pace and tempo, landed far more frequently and then got downright nasty down the stretch.

The 31-year-old Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter has now won six straight to climb into title contention. Halting Jury’s winning streak is a nice feather in his cap and should open up an opportunity to face another Top 5 fighter next time out, but that is where Cerrone has struggled historically. He’s looked like a different fighter as of late – steeling himself in the tight moments, out-classing those he “should” beat – and it will be interesting to see if he’s able to keep this roll going when he steps into the Octagon the next time.

5. Kyoji Horiguchi, Realist

It was refreshing to hear flyweight Kyoji Horiguchi say that he’s not ready to fight for the title at the post-fight press conference, because he’s not. Saturday night, the Kid Yamamoto protege picked up his fourth consecutive UFC victory and his ninth straight win overall, outworking Louis Gaudinot to earn a unanimous decision. It was a good, not great performance and one that showed that there are still areas the 24-year-old Japanese fighters needs to improve before he’s ready to challenge Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson.

There is a tendency – especially with the lighter weight classes – to want to run anyone with a winning streak into a championship match-up, even though that’s what everyone complained about last summer when Chris Cariaso was handed a title shot in Vancouver, but here’s the thing: Horiguchi has zero wins against ranked opponents, so before handing him a title shot, why not see how he does against some of the most established and accomplished fighters in the division first?

Evidently, that’s what Horiguchi wants to. Asked about his place in the division by Damon Martin of FoxSports.com, the now 15-1 fighter said he needs a couple more wins before he’s ready to fight for the belt, which sounds about right. He’ll probably climb into the Top 10 in the next rankings, so a bout with someone in the 6-10 range makes sense for his next fight, and then a Top 5 fighters after that if he’s victorious.

Too many fighters are too quick to say, “Yeah – gimme that title shot; I deserve it!” which made it nice to get an honest, genuine assessment from Horiguchi.

6. Hector Lombard: Welterweight Nightmare

Anyone with hopes of reaching the top of the 170-pound ranks is going to think long and hard about agreeing to step into the Octagon with Lombard and if they don’t, they’re crazy.

At UFC 182, the compact Cuban powerhouse picked up his third straight win since relocating to the welterweight division, turning in an even, measured effort against Josh Burkman to kick off the main card. In his three appearances in the division, Lombard has shown his full range as a fighter – he smoked Nate Marquardt with the quickness, tossed Jake Shields around the cage so much he landed in World Series of Fighting, and picked his spots with improved patience against Burkman. He’s 35-4-1 (1), he’s never been stopped and he has nasty power paired with tremendous offensive and defensive grappling.

Dude is a monster and welterweight hopefuls need to think twice about sharing the cage with him.

7. Introducing Paul Felder

If you’ve read this column (or Keyboard Kimura) with any regularity over the years, you know that I often talk about how a new fighter emerges in the lightweight division on every card. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to prove a point about the depth of the weight class, but lately it has proven to be true.

Saturday night, Paul Felder was the fighter that had his coming out partner in the cage as “The Irish Dragon” stiffened Danny Castillo with a crushing spinning backfist in the center of the Octagon a little over two minutes into the second round. The Philadelphia-based fighter, who trained at “Cowboy” Cerrone’s Bad MF Ranch for this fight, is a perfect 9-0 and looks like someone that could make a little noise in the division going forward.

Castillo is a solid veteran with 20 fights under the Zuffa banner to his credit and Felder thoroughly outclassed him. He a showed clean, varied striking arsenal and good defensive awareness in turning back Castillo’s takedown attempts. Given a little more time working with an elite camp and the boys on the ranch, the 29-year-old could prove to be a late bloomer with upside in what has historically been one of the most competitive and entertaining divisions in the company.

8. Bantamweight is Alpha Male territory

Cody Garbrandt picked up a third-round stoppage win over Marcus Brimage on Saturday, becoming the ninth member of Team Alpha Male to earn a victory in the UFC; 10 if you count Paige VanZant, who prepped for her debut at home in Reno.

The latest Sacramento-based fighter to hit the cage showed smooth boxing and a little bit of swagger, dropping his hands and repeatedly clipping Brimage with counter lefts, eventually connecting with some power late in the third to pick up the third-latest finish in divisional history. Not surprisingly, the two fights that ended later were also won by a member of Team Alpha Male – bantamweight TJ Dillashaw – who stopped both Renan Barao and Joe Soto in the fifth round.

Garbrandt lived up to his advanced billing as a quality prospect and he has the skills to climb the ladder, perhaps quicker than most given that he just dispatched Brimage with relative ease. However, there is a bit of a logjam of Alpha Males in the 135-pound ranks right now which could lead to some problems. Dillashaw is on top of the division and Urijah Faber remains a Top 5 fighter. In addition to “No Love,” recent TUF winner Chris Holdsworth is also on the way up.

Teammates never want to fight each other, but with two sets of two fighters from the same camp in the same place in the same division, things could get complicated for UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby in the future.

9. UFC 185: Pettis vs. dos Anjos

Midway through the prelims, the UFC announced that lightweight champion Anthony Pettis would defend his title against Rafael dos Anjos in the main event of UFC 185 in March 14 in Dallas, Texas.

It’s a tremendous fight – Pettis has looked outstanding over his last four and is one of the most opportunistic fighters in the sport today, while dos Anjos is on a very good run of his own with eight wins in his last nine outings – and the right call by the UFC given that Khabib Nurmagomedov is still sidelined. Social media lit up with the expected snark about Pettis making a quick turnaround and fighting twice in a 12-month span (fair enough), but this is absolutely the approach the organization needs to take with the lightweight champion.

Pettis has superstar potential, but thus far, injuries have prevented him from reached those heights. After beating Gilbert Melendez at the start of last month, “Showtime” said he wanted to stay busy in 2015 and hustling him back into the Octagon while he’s healthy is a no-brainer. Now, the UFC is going to have to make sure to surround this fight with a number of quality match-ups in order to move units on PPV, but getting Pettis back into action and jumping dos Anjos to the front of the line in Nurmagomedov’s stead should produce a much better fight than most people expect… unless Pettis just styles on him too.

10. The Conor McGregor Conundrum

Prior to the middleweight match-up between Brad Tavares and Nate Marquardt, the UFC rolled out a slick promotional package hyping Conor McGregor’s upcoming fight with Dennis Siver in Boston (January 18) and then cut to an interview between “The Notorious” and Joe Rogan. It was a typical McGregor interview – promising a quick victory, projecting a win at home over Jose Aldo, and talking about his close relationship with the UFC brass, all of which is aces.

McGregor is one of the hottest stars in the sport and it makes complete sense for the company to ride his momentum until the wheels fall off.

That being said, I’m really curious to see how the UFC promotes a fight between McGregor and reigning featherweight champion Jose Aldo if (when) it comes together. They’ve talked about giving the challenger home court advantage and having the fight outdoors in Ireland and he’s being given a massive (and deserved) push, but Aldo is the champ and you can’t just relegate him to the background… can you?

The Brazilian standout might not be the most talkative fighter on the roster, but he’s coming off a huge win over Chad Mendes and has more successful title defenses in the UFC (7) than McGregor has appearances (4). Putting all your eggs into the Irishman’s basket – and bringing the fight to Ireland – feels like a risky move given (a) Aldo’s checkered injury history and (b) his dominance thus far.

You have to capitalize on McGregor’s popularity and try to catch lightning in a bottle, but this feels like a little much. Yes, he’s going to do the lion’s share of the promotional work if this one comes together because he’s never met a camera he didn’t like, but the dude with the shiny gold belt around his waist shouldn’t be playing second fiddle to anyone, no matter what.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/01/04/ufc-182-jones-vs-cormier-10-things-we-learned-last-night/feed/1jon_joneskeyboardkimuraThe Keyboard Kimura podcast: Robbie Lawler’s importance for B.C. fighter Rory MacDonaldhttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/12/11/the-keyboard-kimura-podcast-robbie-lawlers-importance-for-b-c-fighter-rory-macdonald/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/12/11/the-keyboard-kimura-podcast-robbie-lawlers-importance-for-b-c-fighter-rory-macdonald/#commentsThu, 11 Dec 2014 18:05:29 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=173326]]>Paul Chapman and Spencer Kyte look back at the remarkable UFC 181 Pay Per View, what the title win for Robbie Lawler means for B.C.’s Rory MacDonald – and when he might get his title shot at Lawler.

They also look at the win by Anthony Pettis and what challenges await him, before they turn their attention to CM Punk, and what chance he has to succeed in UFC after being fired from the WWE.

This is the Keyboard Kimura podcast, powered by Province Sports Radio.

While “don’t blink” has become as overused as describing someone as having “elite” skills in a given area, Pettis is indeed a fighter you can’t take your eyes off for even a split-second because that is all the time he needs to turn a fight on a dime and secure a victory.

Through the first six minutes and change of this past weekend’s co-main event, Melendez was in control, forcing the lightweight champion to follow his lead. He’d close the distance, look for a takedown and sling hands on the break. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. And while Pettis held his own and landed a few shots of his own, “El Nino” was the one dictating the tempo of the contest.

But the fight never made it to the seven-minute mark. A tight right hand while backed onto the fence landed flush and when a woozy Melendez went searching for a takedown in damage control mode, Pettis quickly locked up a guillotine choke and forced the former Strikeforce champion to tap. It was the kind of sudden climax fans have come to expect whenever the man known as “Showtime” steps into the Octagon and the type of unprecedented performance that showed why everyone connected to the sport believe Pettis has the potential to be the face of the UFC in the very near future.

On Monday afternoon, the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) released its list of medical suspensions from Saturday night and Pettis stood at the top of the list with an injured left hand. If the forthcoming x-ray reveals any damage, the Milwaukee native will need to be cleared by a physician in order to compete and be forced to hang out on the sidelines until early June.

If the sublime in-ring ability is the part that makes you bullish about Pettis’ potential and place among the best in the sport today, his penchant for getting hurt and having extended layoffs is the obvious impediment to his reaching those lofty heights.

He’s fought just six times during his three years on the UFC roster and never really had a stretch where he’s established a steady rhythm and gained the full support of the audience. Jon Jones may only fight twice a year now, but the light heavyweight champion was in the Octagon nine times over his first three years with the company and rattled off five fights in 14 months during his ascent to the top of the division.

Pettis hasn’t had that kind of run as of yet. He has five wins in 38 months and could be facing another stint on the sidelines, which would kill all the momentum he built this weekend by stopping Melendez.

By comparison, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone has fought 12 times over that same stretch, which includes a loss to the current lightweight champ in January 2013. While there are several elements that contribute to Cerrone’s surging popularity, a big part of it is that every three or four months, you can be sure that “Cowboy” is going to be in the Octagon, mixing it up with somebody – anybody – and loving every minute of it.

Not that Pettis likes being out of action. It eats at him. He’s a fighter; he wants to fight.

He said that the constant talk of his injuries and questions about whether he’d ever live up to his full potential fuelled him in the build to his fight with Melendez and that to him, the best way to silence those critics was to turn in the type of performance he did on Saturday night.

As much as his performance at UFC 181 pressed paused on the criticisms and showed how truly special of a talent he is when he’s healthy, Monday’s news was an all too familiar reminder of the other piece of the Anthony Pettis puzzle.

You can’t take umbrage with people calling you injury-prone when you get hurt before, during or after every fight. It’s an unfortunate label to be saddled with, but right now, it fits and the only way to shake it is to string together three, four, five consecutive fights without an extended hiatus.

Part of what made Saturday special was that it showed how talented Pettis is in the cage and how big of a star he could be for the UFC. He has a rare kind of magnetism and charisma about him where you can’t not watch him compete and without fail, he finds a way to deliver. The victory and his apparent readiness to jump back into action against top contender Khabib Nurmagomedov in early 2015 created a sense of anticipation.

But all that excitement cools pretty quickly when news comes out that Pettis could be out until June. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s an electric talent and a joy to watch inside the Octagon, it just makes it more difficult to maintain the same level of excitement knowing that it could be another six months before he defends the lightweight title again.

This is why Pettis is such a difficult dichotomy to contend with – he’s both fascinating and frustrating at the same time and the universe seems to want to keep it that way.

Hopefully, his hand injury is nothing major, he’s ready to get back in the cage in March or April and we see “Showtime” fight three times in 2015.

Robbie Lawler is the new UFC welterweight champion, picking up a split decision win over Johny Hendricks in the main event of UFC 181 to claim the title.

As much as everyone is aware of the Cinderella story it has been since he’s returned to the Octagon, some people don’t truly appreciate the scope of Lawler’s comeback. This is a guy who stopped sparring for six years, looked completely disinterested in the sport at times during his Strikeforce tenure and was beaten rather handily by guys like Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Tim Kennedy and Lorenz Larkin. Now he’s the best welterweight in the world.

Make no mistake about it – Lawler’s resurgence is real. He been a beast since moving to American Top Team and returning to the 170-pound ranks and seeing him fulfill his destiny more than a decade after his first UFC run came to an end truly is the stuff Hollywood movies are made of.

2. Not Sure How 49-46 Lawler Happened

MMA scoring/judging has been an issue for a long, long time, but it reared its ugly head again in the main event, as Lawler picked up an inexplicable 49-46 score from judge Glenn Trowbridge. As he saw it, Hendricks won only the middle stanza of the five-round affair.

Watching the bout back not once, not twice, but thrice, 49-46 Lawler doesn’t make sense. You could make an easier case for 49-46 Hendricks than you can 49-46 Lawler unless we throw out all the precedent that has been set in the history of scoring fights. Sadly, that seems to happen far too often.

This is a subject that can’t be covered in the restricted confines of this column (not properly, at least), so expect a larger discussion soon. What has to be said, however, is that there needs to be some serious reforms and adjustments made in MMA scoring to get everyone on the same page – or as close to being on the same page as possible – because going to the scorecards really is becoming a crap shoot and that should not be the case.

3. Rory MacDonald Might Have to Wait

As much as the UFC “promised” Canadian welterweight standout Rory MacDonald that he would face the winner of Saturday’s main event, he might have to wait out a third bout between Hendricks and Lawler or fight once more to keep his place in line.

With each man having won a close, hard-fought battle, putting together a trilogy fight makes a lot of sense, and that’s coming from the guy who dislikes when the UFC rushes rematches to the Octagon. This is different though.

These two have now gone 10 rounds in the Octagon and you could easily argue that they’ve split those frames down the middle. At the absolute most, one man has a 6-4 advantage and given how tight these two bouts have been, running it back for a third time to put a cap on things now might be the right call.

That sucks for MacDonald, but with a championship rematch scheduled and this very outcome easily predicted, “guaranteeing” him the title shot after his win over Tarec Saffiedine in October seemed hasty to begin with.

But then 90 seconds into the second round, Pettis connected with a stiff right hand that staggered Melendez and when the former Strikeforce champion opted to try for a takedown, “Showtime” connected his hands on a deep guillotine choke, rolled through it into mount and forced Melendez to tap. Just like that, the UFC lightweight champion had retained his title and made a statement in one fell swoop.

Pettis is the ultimate opportunist, capable of exploiting any and ever opening that is presented to him. Sometimes, he makes his own chances appear, pressing the action and forcing the opposition to make mistakes. Other times, like Saturday night, he simply takes what he’s given and still finds a way to secure the finish.

That kind of talent – and it is, indeed, a talent – isn’t something you can teach. Pettis’ tremendous natural abilities and keen Fight IQ make him stand out amongst the pack and helped him secure his first title defence on Saturday. Now the question is whether or not more will follow?

5. Clearly Defined Heavyweight Tiers

Cain Velasquez stands alone atop the division. For the present time, new interim champ Fabricio Werdum has a tier to himself as well, though Junior dos Santos or Stipe Miocic could join him with a win next weekend. Travis Browne isn’t far off from that level either.

Brendan Schaub isn’t going to be joining that class any time soon, as Browne dispatched of him in relatively quick and easy fashion Saturday night, shrugging off every takedown attempt “Big Brown” offered before clipping him with a right uppercut and finishing him with unanswered strikes from back mount.

The middle fight in the UFC 181 fight card illustrated the clear striation that exists in the heavyweight ranks. Browne, though not quite a championship-level talent, is definitely a notch or two above Schaub, who well ahead of the middle-to-lower tier talents that fill out the ranks. We see this kind of delineation in every division, but it really stands out in the heavyweight division, where the ranks are shallow and the options are limited.

Browne looked very good against Schaub, but he’s looked very good in these spots before. The key for the massive Hawaiian is to maintain that kind of success when he takes his next step up the ladder and stands in the Octagon with another fighter in the upper echelon of the heavyweight division.

6. Todd Duffee: Still a Prospect to Watch

All it took was 33 seconds. Well, technically, it took 707 days and 33 seconds, but Saturday night at UFC 181, Todd Duffee reminded everyone that he is still very much a prospect worth watching in the UFC heavyweight division.

After nearly two years away from action due his struggles with Parsonage-Turner Syndrome, Duffee stepped back into the Octagon against Anthony Hamilton and promptly laid out the Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter with a right hand to the temple. Quick, pinpoint and powerful, that one shot is all it took to finish the contest and cement the once-hyped physical specimen as a fighter to keep tabs on in 2015.

Given the dearth of fresh blood in the division and the decline shown by several of the established names in the weight class, Duffee has the potential to rise up the ranks rather quickly, provided he remains healthy and able to compete.

7. TUF Winner Tony Ferguson Keeps Rolling

Beware UFC lightweights, “El Cucuy” is coming for you!

After missing 17 months following his loss to Michael Johnson, Ferguson has returned to rattle off four consecutive victories, adding another win to his run of success Saturday night in Las Vegas by submitting Abel Trujillo in the second round. It was his third finish in those four fights and another showcase of the well-rounded skill set he brings to the cage.

Trujillo landed with some power in the first and looked to have Ferguson in danger, but the 30-year-old California native steadied himself and went on the offensive to close out the frame as his opponent began to tire. That pattern continued in the second, as Ferguson dragged Trujillo to the canvas rather easily, softened him up with ground and pound and eventually locked up a rear naked choke.

Rangy with solid wrestling and underrated grappling, Ferguson is now on the cusp of being a contender in the loaded lightweight division. At the very least, he should find himself facing a Top 15 talent when he looks for his fifth straight win once 2015 commences.

8. One Night, Two Bulldog Chokes

There might not have been two bulldog choke finishes in the UFC over the last 10 years. Niklas Backstrom had one earlier this year fighting in Germany, and the only other one I can recall is Carlos Newton using it to win the welterweight title against Pat Miletich way back at UFC 31.

Saturday night, both Urijah Faber and Raquel Pennington used a version of the choke to pick up victories at UFC 181, Faber against Francisco Rivera and Pennington against late replacement Ashlee Evans-Smith. Faber’s finish came following an inadvertent eye poke, while Pennington’s put Evans-Smith to sleep as the horn sounded to signal the end of the first round.

While not a hold that has been frequently seen in the Octagon, it’s one that could become more prevalent going forward as the opportunity to cinch up the choke presents itself fairly often. Fighters have learned not to leave their necks out when shooting in for takedowns, but they don’t often worry about it when the opposition is working to take their back from either side.

Don’t be surprised if you see a few more of these types of finishes in the future.

9. CM Punk, UFC Fighter

Following Tony Ferguson’s win over Abel Trujillo, the pay-per-view broadcast shifted to a stand-up cageside interview between Joe Rogan and former WWE champion CM Punk, where it was announced that “The Straight Edge Superstar” had signed a contract with the UFC.

From an attraction standpoint, bringing in a major name in professional wrestling like Punk will bring tons of new eyeballs to the UFC. Maybe not as many as when Brock Lesnar transitioned from the squared circle to the Octagon, but a solid number, for sure.

From a “fighters with UFC contracts” standpoint, it’s hard to understand how 36-year-old Phil Brooks, former professional wrestler with zero fights to his credit and limited training, is on the roster, but unbeaten welterweight and former NCAA and Olympic wrestler Ben Askren is not.

These are the signings that are hard to take for purists and anyone that wants to see the sport recognized as more than just a spectacle or carnival act. Yes, Punk has profile and will bring more dollars to the table than any other first-time fighter in UFC history, but he has zero professional combat sports experience. A fighter with that kind of resume and advanced age would normally debut in a Fight Pass prelim, but Punk will be a main card fixture from Jump Street and that’s hard rationalize.

10. Instant Punk Effect

The impact of Punk’s arrival is already being felt. Coming off an event with two championship fights, both of which stood out in their own ways, and three more finishes on the main card, the biggest story coming out of UFC 181 is the arrival of “The Second City Saint.”

The UFC is happy because its dominating the headlines (and Google searches and Twitter) conversations today, but the focus should be on the fighters that turned in strong performances Saturday night in Las Vegas, not the former professional wrestler who has yet to set foot in the Octagon.

FoxSports.com, the online arm of the UFC’s broadcast partners, FOX Sports, has a story suggesting that former Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Jason David Frank wants to fight Punk in his UFC debut. Frank is 41-years-old, went 3-0 as an amateur and picked up a 46-second submission win in his lone pro bout four years ago.

I don’t know whether or not that specific fight will happen, but the fact that a former Power Ranger facing a former professional wrestler inside the UFC cage in 2015 is even being discussed as a real thing while proven, talented professional fighters can’t get a sniff of coverage is a complicated reality to wrap your head around.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/12/07/ufc-181-10-things-we-learned-last-night/feed/0robbie_lawlerkeyboardkimuraUFC 181: Punch Drunk Predictionshttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/12/05/ufc-181-punch-drunk-predictions/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/12/05/ufc-181-punch-drunk-predictions/#commentsFri, 05 Dec 2014 08:01:05 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=172464]]>We’ve got one month to go and for the third consecutive event, there has been a change atop the Keyboard Kimura Fall Prediction Challenge standings as E. Spencer Kyte laid a complete egg in Austin, posting a 3-9 mark against Patrick Cwiklinski’s 7-5 record, turning a two-fight lead into a two-fight deficit.

Will we see another change after UFC 181 Saturday night?

Find out below.

These are the UFC 181 Punch Drunk Predictions.

Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler

Patrick: In the weeks leading up to their first fight at UFC 171 in March, if you’d have told me that Hendricks and Lawler would go the distance in one of the greatest welterweight bouts in history — I probably would have laughed.

A lot has changed since then and Hendricks now has to defend his title for the very first time against the man he beat for it earlier this year. While the injury bug has kept the champ out of active competition, Lawler added two more big wins to his resume after finishing Jake Ellenberger and then slugging it out with Matt Brown. By all accounts, the American Top Team product has kept his momentum running and is looking to earn the welterweight title after his first back-and-forth war against Hendricks.

In my eyes, the game plan changes for the champ a bit this time around. Engaging in a stand-up war with Lawler is a bad idea especially since his opponent has been refining those skills since their last meeting. Look for Hendricks to utilize more of his wrestling advantage to really tire Lawler’s body out over the course of five rounds. While I expect it to be another great battle, Hendricks will play it smart and earn his first title defense.

Prediction: Johny Hendricks by Unanimous Decision

ESK: I was hoping to make up some ground here, but that isn’t going to happen as I’m siding with the champion as well.

As much as I can see Lawler being more aggressive and rocking Hendricks to win the title, the more likely scenario that plays out to me is “Bigg Rigg” turning this into an ugly fight, putting Lawler against the cage and on the canvas and grinding him out. The fact that Hendricks was able to win a fight where he stood with Lawler for the majority of the contest and competed with a torn biceps gives me even more confidence in tabbing the champion to retain his title.

Prediction: Johny Hendricks by Unanimous Decision

Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez

Patrick: Had a split decision went in his favour against Benson Henderson in April 2013, Melendez could very well still be the UFC lightweight champion. It was a very controversial loss that probably should have gone his way, but alas that’s the sport of mixed martial arts sometimes.

After Melendez got his crack at Henderson, Pettis was able to do what the preceding title challenger couldn’t — finish. A slick submission in the first round earned Pettis the UFC lightweight title and his first title defense is against one of the most well-rounded fighters in the division.

Pettis has inventive, dynamic striking and some truly creative submissions in his arsenal but Melendez, while certainly not as flashy, has both of those things as well. If Melendez can slow Pettis down and turn this into an ugly fight then I truly believe he’s capable of becoming the next UFC lightweight champion even against someone as captivating as Pettis. Look for a fun and very close match-up with “El Nino” finally earning his gold.

Prediction: Gilbert Melendez by Split Decision

ESK: I can see Melendez dirtying this fight up, but every time I break it down in my head, I see Pettis getting his hand raised. As much as we talk about his creative offense (rightfully so), we don’t give him enough credit for being opportunistic and making adjustments on the fly, two traits that are incredibly important inside the Octagon.

In terms of how this plays out, I just see Pettis using his quickness and ability to work from range to frustrate and stymy Melendez’ advances. “El Nino” is a fairly straightforward fighter and “Showtime” should be able to cut angles, land in bunches and wear down his challenger with a barrage of punches and kicks en route to a unanimous decision win.

Prediction: Anthony Pettis by Unanimous Decision

Travis Browne vs. Brendan Schaub

Patrick: It’s really hard to dislike Schaub as a personality – he’s a fun-loving guy who wears his heart on his sleeve and never backs down from a challenge on his mission to become the UFC heavyweight champion. That said, a fight is a fight and his opponent has been one the most consistent heavyweight finishers in recent years.

Yes, Browne was totally outclassed by Fabricio Werdum for five rounds but Schaub is no Werdum and despite possessing a legitimate threat on the ground — he won’t have much in terms of striking for “Hapa.” Browne is a massive human being with a knack for finishing his opponents with ferocious knees and elbows, look for more of the same here against a very game Schaub.

Prediction: Travis Browne by TKO, Round 2

ESK: I’m not touching your setup and will simply say this – Browne is on a completely different level than Schaub in the stand-up department and if Fabricio Werdum wasn’t able to take the massive Hawaiian to the mat and finish him, Schaub certainly won’t here.

Browne has something to prove in this one and I think it happens pretty quickly.

Prediction: Travis Browne by TKO, Round 1

Todd Duffee vs. Anthony Hamilton

Patrick: A lot has changed since Duffee last fought in December 2012 and despite an impressive TKO finish of Philip De Fries at UFC 155, nearly two years is a major layoff. Hamilton got off to a rocky start with the UFC after Alexey Oleinik submitted him in just over two minutes. Both guys are here with something to prove and even though Duffee’s absence and battle with Parsonage Turner Syndrome are real issues, look for the 28-year-old American Top Team product to re-establish himself as a legitimate threat in the heavyweight ranks.

Prediction: Todd Duffee by TKO, Round 1

ESK: Anthony Hamilton had a Brock Lesnar-like reaction to getting punched by Oleksy Oliynyk in his UFC debut, which is to say he turned away, looked really uncomfortable and made me question how this dude was fighting in the UFC to begin with. He looked much better in his sophomore appearance, a win over Ruan Potts, but he’s about to get punched in the face by a gigantic human being again, so I don’t like his chances.

Duffee is still a decent prospect in a division that lacks depth and now that he’s healthy, look for the returning heavyweight to pick up another impressive finish.

Prediction: Todd Duffee by TKO, Round 1

Tony Ferguson vs. Abel Trujillo

Patrick: Trujillo’s display of scary knockout power as a lightweight in his last two fights is undeniably impressive and he could easily do the same against Ferguson here — but I just don’t see it. Ferguson has the stronger overall game as well as wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu to go along with his improved striking. Yes he’s coming off a pretty shaky split decision win over Danny Castillo, but Ferguson should have the tools to defeat a knockout artist like Trujillo by neutralizing his opponent’s strengths over three rounds.

Prediction: Tony Ferguson by Unanimous Decision

ESK: This is a co-flip fight for me and with you taking Ferguson, I’m going to go ahead and take Trujillo. I think he has more devastating power than “El Cucuy” and the difference in the wrestling isn’t as much as people think. Besides, I think Ferguson makes some bad choices at times and keeps his chin available for checking and Trujillo is the kind of guy that only needs one shot to end your night.

If you’re not, I honestly don’t know what to tell you because after a summer filled with most good, not great events, this weekend’s offering is damn-near perfect in every way. Seriously.

From featuring a pair of young fighters with promise (Sergio Pettis, Alex White) on the Fight Pass openers to showcasing the most recent Ultimate Fighter winners (Eddie Gordon and Corey Anderson) on the televised prelims headlined by one of the bigger names in the sport (Urijah Faber), even the build up to the night’s final five contests is spot-on and then the pay-per-view itself is awesome.

Why is it awesome? I’m glad you asked.

Here are 5 Reasons to Watch UFC 181.

Fight of the Year Rematch

Rematches used to be special – they didn’t happen often, there was usually some time between the two fights and most of the time, the reason a sequel was ordered up was because the first fight was so damn good.

Over the last couple years, circumstances and stalled out divisions have led to an increase in the number of rematches we’ve seen hit the Octagon – the timelines have been compressed, the matchups have been pumped up and they’re yielded mixed results. Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard’s two meetings in 2011? Great. Cain Velasquez facing Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva between each of his three fights with Junior dos Santos? Not so much.

Saturday night, the main event is a rematch between Johny Hendricks and Robbie Lawler, who met for the first time just nine months ago at UFC 171 in Dallas. Like their first meeting, the UFC welterweight title will be on the line in this one as well, only this time Hendricks enters with the strap and Lawler is looking to wrest it away from him. Normally, seeing the same two fighters compete for a championship nine months apart would feel forced, but this is absolutely the right fight for the division and a rematch worth tuning in to see this weekend.

Their first encounter is at or near the top of the list of Fight of the Year contenders for 2014. Though the phrase gets thrown around far too liberally these days, it was, in fact, an instant classic – a five-round, 25-minute, back-and-forth battle where each man had their moments and getting a second edition on Saturday feels like a treat, especially because both men are capable of bringing even more to the table this time around.

Hendricks fought the majority of the last bout with one hand, having suffered a torn biceps early in the initial contest. Being able to properly shoot for takedowns and having the full use of his right arm changes what he’s able to do drastically, and that’s saying something given how well he performed last time out. As for Lawler, he’s looked even better in his two fights since losing to Hendricks, picking apart Jake Ellenberger and Matt Brown to stamp himself as the No. 1 contender. “Ruthless” kept a higher pace in each of those two bouts than he did against Hendricks, initiating more of the offense rather than waiting to counter, and if he does that here, we could have a different outcome.

There is no way this fight won’t be entertaining. None.

It’s Showtime!

Anthony Pettis is one of those fighters you just have to tune in to see whenever he competes because if you don’t, there is a good chance you’re going to miss something special.

Imagine if you decided not to watch WEC 53 live and missed one of the most inventive, dramatic strikes in the history of the sport – The Showtime Kick – play out in real time. I remember sitting on my couch as the clocked ticked down towards the one minute mark in the final round of what was a close fight, Benson Henderson backing up as Pettis starts his approach… and then he ran up the damn fence, kicked Henderson in the face and I lost it.

That’s what the UFC lightweight champion brings to the table and that’s why having him finally returning to action is such a big deal. Out since he won the title from Henderson in August 2013, there is a ton of pressure on Pettis heading into this one, both because he’s been sidelined since winning the title and because he’s clearly someone the UFC views as a potential superstar, and he needs to show that the wait was worth it.

There are few fighters in this sport that possess the kind of electric mix of talent and personality that Pettis delivers – Anderson Silva, Ronda Rousey, Jon Jones and that’s about it. They all do things that others can’t and make everything look so effortless, leaving you gobsmacked whenever they step into the cage. Outside of the cage, they have that “It Factor” that elevates them above the rest of the pack.

Pettis has the potential to be one of the biggest fighters in this sport. He can take the next step in that journey with a win on Saturday.

The Perfect Foil

The UFC couldn’t have picked a better fighter to face Pettis in his return to the Octagon than Gilbert Melendez.

“El Nino” is everything you want in a title challenger in this moment. A former champion himself, the grand scale of the fight isn’t going to impact him in any way and he might be the most battle-tested fighter in the division, having gone the six of his last seven appearances, all but one of those being a five-round championship fight.

From a style standpoint, he’s a more powerful, technical version of Clay Guida, the only man to beat Pettis under the UFC banner to date. He works far more straight ahead than “The Carpenter” and has much more pop in his hands too, and while Guida’s off-rhythm bob-and-weave can be disruptive, Melendez’ relentless pressure makes him a formidable foe. He’s also never been stopped in his career, so there’s that too.

There’s something about seeing Pettis up against a proven, veteran challenger like Melendez that is more compelling than if he were to face Donald Cerrone, Rafael dos Anjos or Khabib Nurmagomedov in his first title defense. He’s beaten the first already and the latter two have never been in championship fights, so who knows how they’re going to react when all the attention is focused on them. Because Melendez has been in this position many times over, you know you’re going to get the best version of him possible on Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center and that’s very exciting.

Who Doesn’t Love a Good Heavyweight Scrap?

Back in September after Andrei Arlovski knocked out Antonio Silva and before Mark Hunt delivered a walk-off KO to Roy Nelson, I talked about how no matter the circumstances or situation, there is always something innately compelling about a heavyweight matchup in the UFC. Sitting here three days before UFC 181, I stand by that argument.

This weekend’s main card offers a pair of battles in the big boy division and both are intriguing for their own reasons.

The first of the two contests to hit the cage features the returning Todd Duffee taking on Anthony Hamilton. You might remember Duffee from his seven-second knockout win over Tim Hague in his debut or Mike Russow pulling a Homer Simpson against him in his sophomore appearance. After two years spent getting a handle on the Parsonage-Turner Syndrome that nearly ended his career, the physical specimen once considered the future of the division is back and he’s ready to make up for lost time. That doesn’t bode well for Hamilton.

The second heavyweight tussle on Saturday’s main card pits Travis Browne against Brendan Schaub in a bout where both men has something to prove.

Browne was the favourite in his April meeting with Fabricio Werdum, but ended up on the business end of a beating courtesy of the current interim heavyweight champion. “Hapa” suffered numerous injuries during that bout, has shifted camps since then and comes into his meeting with Schaub needing to validate his place as a Top 3 heavyweight in the UFC, given that he’s 1-2-1 in the biggest fights of career.

Schaub, on the other hand, came away on the wrong side of a split decision against Arlovski in Vancouver at UFC 174 and while he probably could make a case for deserving the nod, he also didn’t do a whole hell of a lot, so playing it like he was robbed is a bit much.

The former TUF finalist is one of those fighters that seems to have gotten bigger opportunities than his record would otherwise indicate he warrants, both inside and outside of the cage. Whether that’s good living, having a good relationship with the UFC brass or simply me not being able to see the charms of Brendan Schaub is neither here nor there. What is important, however, is that the 31-year-old finds himself unranked in shallowest division in the organization and staring down a tall task, literally, in Browne. If he can’t get a win here, Schaub’s options going forward are severely limited.

2015 Lightweight Breakout Candidates

Because the lightweight division is so stacked, it’s easy to lose track of emerging talents as they’re working their way up the ladder. With a new ’55er making a case for contention or a spot in the ranking on seemingly every card, you tend to forget about fighters that have had strong performances earlier in the year simply because those outings have been replaced by more recent showings.

Back in February, Abel Trujillo had one of the nastiest knockouts of the year, a step-back right hand that connected with Jamie Varner’s jaw and dropped the former WEC champion like a rock. Boom! Done. It was a thoroughly entertaining scrap that has fallen off the radar because it took place 10 months ago and the Blackzilian lightweight hasn’t competed since.

Tony Ferguson missed 17 months of action following his loss to Michael Johnson in May 2012, but he’s a perfect 3-0 since, picking up finishes over Mike Rio and Katsunori Kikuno before going to a split decision with Danny Castillo last time out. A former TUF winner, “El Cucuy” is finally starting to live up to the potential he showed on the long-running reality TV competition, blending his awkward, but effective grappling game with rangy power and the right amount of moxie to climb the lightweight ranks in 2014.

While neither of these two are currently ranked in the Top 15, the winner could find themselves breaking through and would be in position to have a breakout year in 2015. Given how much we crow about wanting to see the next wave of challengers and potential contenders on the way up, this is the type of fight that people need to be tuning in to see.

He’s a dynamic talent that does incredible things inside the Octagon and away from the cage, the fashionable, well-spoken lightweight standout is as marketable as they come. Good looking, dangerous and deserving of his “Showtime” nickname, the 27-year-old UFC champion could be the face of the organization and even the sport going forward.

That’s why his championship showdown with Gilbert Melendez Saturday night at UFC 181 is so important.

For all the potential that he carries, one thing has prevented Pettis from already ascending to superstar status in this sport: injuries.

This weekend marks his first appearance since winning the lightweight title from Benson Henderson at UFC 164 on August 31, 2013. He’s been the champion for 458 days (as of this writing), just 56 days less than Chris Weidman has stood atop the 185-pound weight class, but while “The All-American” has successfully defended the middleweight title twice, Pettis has been stuck on the sidelines. But it goes beyond just his lack of fights since winning the belt.

Pettis rose to a new level of recognition with “The Showtime Kick,” the inventive, run-up-the-wall roundhouse kick he landed on Henderson in the final minute of their championship encounter at WEC 53. That fight took place nearly four years ago and the creative striker has only competed five times since then.

Three of those appearances came in a nine-month stretch between June 2011 and February 2012 where Pettis dropped his UFC debut to Clay Guida before rebounding with a decision win over Jeremy Stephens and a first-round knockout finish of veteran Joe Lauzon at UFC 144 in Japan. Since that time, the Duke Roufus protege has only competed twice – a January 2012 finish of Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and his championship win over Henderson in his hometown of Milwaukee.

Moreover, Pettis’ victory at UFC 164 stands as his lone appearance of the last 23 months. During that same time, the potential superstar has been forced to pull out of a pair of championship contests – first, a featherweight bout with Jose Aldo that ultimately made him available to face Henderson and claim the lightweight title, and then a proposed title defense against Josh Thomson last December that was scuttled after he suffered a knee injury that required surgery.

That’s the same kind of staccato schedule that has earned heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez the injury-prone label and kept him from truly establishing himself as one of the all-time greats in the division. While Velasquez is currently on the shelf and fans are now stuck waiting for him to heal up and return, that period is set to come to a close for Pettis, meaning the pressure is on the lightweight champ to show that this fight and the beginning of his reign atop the deep and talented division has been worth the wait.

It’s rare that a fighter’s first title defence be characterized as a must-win, but that’s the reality of Pettis’ current situation. If he were to come out on Saturday and drop the belt to Melendez – the former Strikeforce champ and a formidable challenger – it will feel like these last 16 months without a lightweight title fight have been all for naught.

In a time where the UFC has struggled to find pay-per-view main events that compel the increasingly selective audience to open their wallets, knowing that Pettis likely could have returned in August (at the absolute latest) has been a difficult pill to swallow, especially given that he and Melendez’ inclusion on this season of The Ultimate Fighter hasn’t done much to increase the anticipation for this fight. It would be one thing if the soon-to-be combatants were central figures in this season and the animosity between the two cramped up the interest in this fight, but they’ve simply been opposing coaches, with the cast of strawweights rightfully commanding the majority of the attention.

And that just make you wish they the UFC had booked these two to throw down earlier in the year, rather than announcing the matchup nine months ago and tethering it to the latest season of TUF.

Part of why people have been more accepting (read: less critical) of Pettis’ absence from the Octagon since winning the title is because of the unique strikes and highlight reel finishes he’s delivered thus far and has the potential provide once he returns to action. The last thing anyone wants is for Pettis (or any fighter, for that matter) to rush back too soon, suffer another injury as a result and be sidelined for an even greater amount of time.

But that period of understanding ends on Saturday and fair or not, Pettis needs a victory in order to make the most of the potential opportunity before him and validate the push he’s received during his time away.

What’s interesting is that Melendez is essentially a neutral matchup for the returning champion.

On one hand, the wrestling pedigree and relentless style “El Nino” brings to the cage is reminiscent of the strategy Guida employed to upend Pettis in his Octagon debut. On the other hand, he’s a traditional wrestle-boxer who likes to come forward, which plays right into Pettis’ creative offensive arsenal. “Showtime” should be considerably faster in the cage on Saturday and showed in his fight with Henderson (and a couple of his earlier WEC wins) that he’s capable of working off his back and putting opponents at risk on the canvas, so while Melendez’ aggressiveness and durability is worrisome, Pettis should have numerous opportunities to showcase his explosive weaponry.

He doesn’t necessary need a finish and Melendez has never been stopped, but Pettis needs the win and a handful of those attacks that only he is capable of delivering in order for his injury history and extended layoff to not overshadow what could be a major moment for him this weekend.

Beginning this weekend with UFC 181, the next three months feature an impressive collection of cards featuring all of the biggest names currently active in the sport: Jones, Rousey, Weidman, Silva, Diaz and McGregor.

Saturday in Las Vegas, Johny Hendricks returns to defend the welterweight title for the first time, taking on the man he beat for the belt at UFC 171 in March, “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler. Setting the table for the second edition of one of this year’s best fights is a lightweight title scrap between champion Anthony Pettis and challenger Gilbert Melendez.

As currently mapped out, the calendar over the next three months might be the greatest stretch of action to grace the Octagon in UFC history.

The time is indeed now.

But part of the reason the lineup over the next 90 days is so loaded is because injuries have pushed several of the fighters scheduled to compete between now and the end of February to the sidelines for extended periods of time.

Pettis hasn’t fought since winning the lightweight title from Benson Henderson in August 2013, battling injuries before being tabbed to coach opposite Melendez on the current season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Hendricks has been out of action since defeating Lawler in Dallas earlier this year, going under the knife to repair a torn biceps muscle.

Vitor Belfort and Chris Weidman were originally scheduled to fight on Memorial Day weekend before Las Vegas’ TRT ban and injuries to both fighters ultimately led to the bout getting penciled in for nine months after its initial date.

Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier should have fought at UFC 178, but a knee injury to the champion resulted in the bout being moved back to next year’s initial pay-per-view offering. Additionally, that grudge match only came to be after No. 1 contender Alexander Gustafsson was forced out of a rematch with “Bones” after suffering an injury of his own.

Had all of these things not happened, the upcoming schedule would look significantly different and there is the distinct possibility that fight fans might not be as keyed up for what’s on the horizon as they are now.

As much as injuries have a negative impact on fight cards up front, the flip side of the coin is that down the line, the walking wounded get healthy and the result is a bevy of big fights like we have on tap now.

It’s easy to look back at 2014 and lament the opportunities missed – the major fights that were postponed or cancelled, the big names that were stuck on the sidelines instead of stepping into the Octagon – or use any one of several marquee mismatches that were put together on short notice as evidence that things are broken and the hectic schedule the UFC keeps is solely to blame.

To think of days gone by and the series of stacked events that chase each other out of the Octagon, one after another after another after… wait…

Go back and look at those glorious days gone by and try to find the stacked fight cards everyone waxes nostalgic about whenever the countdown to a good, not great pay-per-view begins.

Two years ago, Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon – two talented lightweights that have never fought for UFC gold – held down the co-main event of the year-end event. Three years back, UFC 141 was pretty great, but the year before that (UFC 125) featured Brian Stann and Chris Leben in the penultimate pairing. Tracking five years into the past, UFC 108, the de facto close out to 2009, was headlined by Rashad Evans and Thiago Silva, with Paul Daley and Dustin Hazelett setting the table for them.

Dustin Hazelett, who was tagged in for Carlos Condit, who was forced out of the bout a month earlier with an injury.

There were 20 events in 2009, less than half as many as took place this year and there were still fighters being forced to withdraw from contests while being replaced by less established, less qualified names. Though Hazelett was 5-2 in the UFC and a more known commodity than Patrick Cummins when he was plucked from obscurity to face Daniel Cormier at UFC 170, they lasted roughly the same amount of time in their respective replacement opportunities.

Two fights later, “McLovin” was bounced from the UFC. Cummins, meanwhile, picked up a pair of wins this summer, showing the underlying potential those that could look passed his last minute promotion saw from the jump. He most assuredly shouldn’t have been sharing the cage with the next man to challenge for the light heavyweight title, but when you have two weeks to find a replacement, beggars can’t be choosers.

The funny thing about injury replacements and how we rate fight cards is that no one ever remembers the shifts that result in great fights taking place or lobbies for the UFC to “share the wealth” when the organization loads up a particular event with quality contests. No one had anything negative to say about UFC 178 until Demetrious Johnson and Chris Cariaso replaced Jones and Cormier, and then, the only complaint was that “Mighty Mouse” wasn’t a suitable headliner and Cariaso hadn’t done enough to merit a title shot.

There were no calls to bump Dominick Cruz and Takeya Mizugaki to a future main card instead of having it close out the prelims and the fact that burgeoning superstar Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier – a grand slam as a Fight Night main event – held down the middle position on the main card didn’t bother anyone.

People only cry foul when they don’t get what they want and more and more, all they want is big names, stacked cards and a return to “the good old days” when the UFC roughly 20 events a year and the great Eddie Sanchez bested Soa Palelei in the third fight of a pay-per-view main card.

No one seems to care when the injured fighters get healthy and land side-by-side on loaded fight cards or exciting match-ups between fan favourites get put together.

It’s only when Johnson or TJ Dillashaw or Jose Aldo headline a pay-per-view and a fight everyone was looking forward to gets scrapped that complaints about the schedule and how the standard for gaining a place on the UFC roster has declined in recent years becomes an issue, as if the bar could remain as high as it once was given the current MMA landscape.

It’s the same reason the sneaky good UFC Fight Night event in Austin managed to get less coverage than Manny Pacquiao’s inevitable thumping of Chris Algieri, Metamoris 5 and any number of alternate stories featuring bigger names two weeks ago.

If it were really about wanting higher quality MMA and fewer events, those that complain about the UFC schedule wouldn’t spend free evenings watching Bellator shows, World Series of Fighting cards or the internet streams of any number of international events, not to mention kickboxing, boxing and anything else remotely connected to combat sports.

What it’s really about is wanting big names and big events, which is why everyone – even those that can’t stop blaming the UFC schedule for all the challenges the organization has faced this year – are stoked about the upcoming schedule.

Then again, I’ve been kicking around this idea in my head for a couple months now and the current two-week break in the schedule just felt like the right time to undertake this project.

On each of the first two episodes of the Keyboard Kimura Podcast, Paul Chapman and I have touched on the current schedule and how isn’t necessarily conducive to star-builidng and the sheer volume of events (a) can make it hard to keep up at times and (b) doesn’t allow enough time to really get hyped for events they way you could in the days when PPVs were fewer and further between.

None of this is ground-breaking analysis – anyone that follows the sport has been having these same conversations for a year or more. But rather than just throw my hands in the air and say, “There’s nothing that can be done about it!” I wanted to see what the UFC schedule would look like with a few modifications.

So here’s what I did:

Compiled a spreadsheet of all the fights that took place in 2013, breaking the year into quarters

Reduced the schedule to 36 events per year: four pay-per-views, four UFC on FOX events, and 26 televised/Fight Pass shows

Each quarter features one PPV and one UFC on FOX event, plus an additional seven fight cards

PPV events are placed using key dates the UFC uses annually: Super Bowl Saturday, Memorial Day Weekend, Fourth of July Weekend and a year-end event in December

UFC on FOX shows are placed in non-PPV months based on previous dates and best fit

Now, I don’t actually believe the UFC will ever cut down to just four PPV events per year, but I wanted to see what the cards could look like if you only had one PPV per quarter and I have to say, they look insane. They look like events that have the potential to do big buy rates, and that’s one of the things that prompted me to put this all together.

Let’s say the average buy rate over the course of a year is 400,000 units – some shows do more, others do less, but the average settles at 400k. With 13 events a year, that works out to 5.2 million buys overall. If there were just four PPV each year, every event would need to do 1.3 million buys in order to match that figure.

Given that there have only been a handful of events that cracked a million buys and the buy rate is trending down of late, that sounds like a figure that would be nearly impossible to reach. The PPV lineups that came together using fights from 2013 just might be able to make a run at that number, especially because there is time to get excited for these blockbuster events and you’re not shelling out $50-60 a month.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this is all fiction – the UFC isn’t going to slash the number of PPV events they hold to four or cut a dozen events off the schedule and they sure as hell aren’t going to put some of the fights that I’ve put on televised events on television. Additionally, there is far more that goes into creating the UFC schedule and the business end of things beyond putting together a fight card, so by no means is this meant as a cure-all.

The point of all this is to see what it would look like if the UFC did move to fewer events and try to spark some conversation.

I hear all the time that people are sick of paying $50 for PPVs that have one or two attractive fights and that there are too many “watered down” fight cards. Now I want to hear what you think of this mad scientist schedule I’ve created and whether or not these alterations would get you fired up about the UFC again.

Here’s an alternate look at 2013 in the UFC.

Note: there is one Fight Night event every quarter built as a Brazilian card to reflect that the UFC hosts multiple events in the country annually.

JANUARY

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT (BRAZIL)

UFC ON FOX

Hunt vs. Struve

Belfort vs. Bisping

Rousey vs. Carmouche

Okami vs. Lombard

Fitch vs. Maia

Pettis vs. Cowboy

Chiesa vs. Kuivanen

Khabib vs. Tavares

Lamas vs. Koch

Manuwa vs. Diabate

Dollaway vs. Sarafian

Lawler vs. Koscheck

Barboza vs. Martins

Lentz vs. Nunes

FEBRUARY

PPV (SUPER BOWL SATURDAY)

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

GSP vs. Diaz

Barao vs. McDonald

Wanderlei – Stann

DJ vs. Dodson

Swanson vs. Poirier

Benevidez vs. McCall

Hendricks vs. Condit

Makdessi vs. Cruickshank

DHK vs. Siyar

Bigfoot vs. Overeem

Dillashaw vs. Tamura

Guida vs. Hioki

Sanchez vs. Gomi

McGee vs. Neer

Mizugaki vs. Caraway

MARCH

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

Machida vs. Henderson

Evans vs. Nogueira

Glover vs. Rampage

Ellenberger vs. Marquardt

Bader vs. Matyushenko

Faber vs. Menjivar

Grant vs. Wiman

Rothwell vs. Gonzaga

Woodley vs. Hieron

Dunham vs. Tibau

Nelson vs. Santiago

Schaub vs. L. Johnson

Jordan vs. Russow

Bermudez vs. Grice

Mein vs. D. Miller

APRIL

FIGHT NIGHT

UFC ON FOX

FIGHT NIGHT (BRAZIL)

Cormier vs. Mir

Velasquez vs. Bigfoot

Werdum vs. Nogueira

Shields vs. Woodley

Cowboy vs. Noons

Teixiera vs. Te Huna

T. Silva vs. Feijao

Nelson vs. Kongo

dos Anjos vs. Dunham

Krause vs. Stout

Jordan vs. Barry

Lentz vs. Dias

Masvidal vs. Means

Leo Santos vs. Macario

MAY

FIGHT NIGHT

TUF FINALE

PPV (MEMORIAL DAY)

Belfort vs. Rockhold

Henderson vs. Evans

Jones vs. Sonnen

Jacare vs. Camozzi

Grant vs. Maynard

Henderson vs. Melendez

Khabib vs. Trujillo

Pearson vs. Couture

Thomson vs. Diaz

Story vs. Pyle

McMann vs. Gaff

Davis vs. Magalhaes

McGregor vs. Brimage

Gastelum vs. Hall

Healy vs. Miller

JUNE

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

Faber vs. Jorgensen

Miocic vs. Nelson

dos Santos vs. Hunt

Zingano vs. Tate

Bisping vs. Belcher

Mousasi vs. Latifi

Mendes vs. Elkins

Formiga vs. Cariaso

Brown vs. Mein

Benavidez vs. Uyenoyama

Bermudez vs. Holloway

Mitrione vs. De Fries

Dillashaw vs. Viana

Pickett vs. Easton

Davis vs. Sexton

JULY

PPV (JULY 4)

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

Silva vs. Weidman

Rua vs. Sonnen

MacDonald vs. Ellenberger

Aldo vs. Korean Zombie

Machida vs. Davis

Brown vs. Pyle

Browne vs. Overeem

McDonald vs. Pickett

Kennedy vs. Gracie

Barnett vs. Mir

Swanson vs. Siver

Carmont vs. Philippou

Jury vs. Ricci

Gonzaga vs. Herman

Lineker vs. Tome

AUGUST

FIGHT NIGHT

UFC ON FOX

FIGHT NIGHT

Condit vs. Kampmann II

Jones vs. Gustafsson

Barao vs. Wineland

Munoz vs. Boetsch

Cowboy vs. dos Anjos

Faber vs. Alcantara

Masvidal vs. Chiesa

Benavidez vs. Formiga

McGregor vs. Holloway

Mizugaki vs. Perez

Rothwell vs. Vera

Menace vs. Lauzon

McGee vs. Whittaker

Carmouche vs. Andrade

SEPTEMBER

FIGHT NIGHT (BRAZIL)

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

Teixeira vs. Bader

Henderson vs. Pettis

DJ vs. Moraga

Jacare vs. Okami

Mendes vs. Guida

Edgar vs. Oliveira

Mutante vs. T. Santos

Poirier vs. Koch

Schaub vs. Mitrione

Hallmann vs. Trinaldo

Khabib vs. Healy

Lawler vs. Voelker

Natal vs. Troeng

Gastelum vs. Melancon

Elliott vs. Gaudinot

OCTOBER

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT (BRAZIL)

FIGHT NIGHT

Faber vs. McDonald

Belfort vs. Henderson

Melendez vs. Sanchez

Woodley vs. Koscheck

Mutante vs. Sarafian

Shields vs. Maia

Johnson vs. Tibau

DHK vs. E. Silva

Diaz vs. Maynard

Silva vs. Hamill

Stephens vs. Jason

Davis vs. Carmouche

Thatch vs. Thiago

Ponzinibbio vs. LaFlare

Poirier vs. Brandao

NOVEMBER

FIGHT NIGHT

FIGHT NIGHT

UFC ON FOX

Cormier vs. Nelson

Hunt vs. Silva

Cain vs. JDS III

Machida vs. Munoz

Rua vs. Te Huna

Lawler vs. MacDonald

Dodson vs. Montague

Bader vs. Perosh

Cowboy vs. Dunham

Lombard vs. Marquardt

Pearson vs. Guillard

Gonzaga vs. Jordan

Eye vs. Kaufman

Palelei vs. Barry

DECEMBER

FIGHT NIGHT

TUF FINALE

PPV (YEAR END)

DJ vs. Benavidez II

Rousey vs. Tate II

Weidman vs. Silva II

Evans vs. Sonnen

Assuncao vs. Dillashaw

GSP vs. Hendricks

Kennedy vs. Natal

Mendes vs. Lentz

Browne vs. Barnett

Khabilov vs. Masvidal

Pena vs. Rakoczy

Green vs. Healy

Boetsch vs. Dollaway

Holdsworth vs. Grant

Bagautinov vs. Elliott

Not bad, right?

Obviously, there are elements that don’t quite click.

There are some quarters that are thin on big fights and others where there was an abundance of awesomeness to play with. The final three months of 2013 featured five championship bouts and several of the biggest bouts of the year, which means it was possible to build a massive one-two punch atop the fictional December pay-per-view and still have Velasquez-JDS III on FOX and the rematch between Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate on a Fight Night event.

A five-month gap between the Fourth of July PPV and the year-end event isn’t ideal, but maybe five months without a pay-per-view gets more people keen to purchase the December show.

Those things are never going to happen in real life, but it’s feasible here and that is something worth discussing.

What makes this collection of fight cards interesting is that they are built off the fights that actually took place last year – they account for every injury and every late replacement. Anthony Pettis doesn’t fight after the third quarter because he didn’t fight after winning the lightweight title in August in real life. Even though it was supposed to be Alexander Gustafsson that welcomed Gegard Mousasi to the UFC, it ended up being Ilir Latifi, so that’s how it’s booked here.

The Ultimate Fighter Finales have the final fights of those seasons on the main card and the coaches bouts are either alongside or after those contests.

Again – it’s not perfect, but it’s an example of what things could have theoretically looked like.

Bec Rawlings gets word that her stepdad has passed away and her coaches and teammates rally around her.

The members of Team Melendez grow increasingly frustrated with Heather Clark as she tries to organize a casual game at the house.

In a rematch of their bloody battle from Invicta FC, Jessica Penne makes quick work of Lisa Ellis to give Team Pettis its third consecutive victory. With control still on their side, Anthony Pettis announces the next matchup, calling on top seed Carla Esparza to take on Team Melendez’ No. 16 seed Angela Hill.

(hit the music)

Anthony Pettis is absent for his team’s training session, so he asked Urijah Faber to run things. As you would expect, Felice Herrig is the one that talks about how dreamy Urijah is on camera and later jokes with Esparza about the two seemingly “sharing a moment” where they maybe could have kissed on the mats. Yes, the show is edited to portray people in a certain light, but Herrig isn’t coming off so well so far this season. Faber, meanwhile, speaks glowingly of Joanne Calderwood, christening her “The KO Whisperer” and positing that she has the talent to win the whole competition.

Back at the house, it’s time to profile Angela Hill, who faces top seed Carla Esparza, and the segment is focused on her penchant for farting. Seriously. The clip is just her rippin’ farts around the house, talking about how women need to be able to fart without feeling shame. This show is killing me. A house full of quality fighters and you’ve got them running around in their panties, talking about dropping farts all the time. Amazing.

During Team Melendez’ practice, they’ve got Hill working a sprawl-and-brawl game plan, expecting Esparza to utilize her wrestling and look to avoid Hill’s striking. It’s the right strategy, but even Gilbert Melendez expresses concerns about the experience gap between his charge and the top-seeded former Invicta FC champ.

While the team is sparring, Rose Namajunas hits a takedown on Heather Clark who comes up complaining about a hyper-extended knee. At the next practice, she’s limited to riding the bike and gets into an argument with Angela Magana when the rest of the team rolls up to use the ice bath and Clark has taken up the majority of the limited time the team had left. This situation isn’t going to go away any time soon.

For the first time, the camera focuses in on a fighter that isn’t competing on the episode and isn’t involved in drama or nonsense, as Justine Kish’s weight and an old knee injury are thrust into the spotlight. The Russian-born American has only fought at 115 pounds once in the past and she’s concerned about making the limit. Unfortunately, her surgically repaired knee is giving her problems and limiting what she’s able to do in the gym. Faber talks to her about it and suggests she get in the sauna and the pool every day.

Esparza gets the “get to know me before my fight treatment” and explains how she became a wrestler and where she got the nickname “The Cookie Monster” from. As you probably guessed, it was from eating a lot of cookies. While she’s nervous about ring rust having last fought 18 months ago, her BFF Herrig talks her through it and we’re finally ready to get down to brass tax.

Fight Day: This fight played out exactly how you would expect a fight between the top-seeded wrestler and the No. 16-seeded striker with one professional fight would go, as Esparza waited to catch a kick and used that to take Hill to the canvas. From there, it was a matter of time as Esparza softened Hill up and eventually took the back, looking for the choke. Hill escaped to her feet at one point, but Esparza dragged her right back to the ground and went back to pursuing the finish. She couldn’t get it right away, but maintained position, landed some more shots and eventually slipped the arm under the chin to sink in the choke.

Esparza enjoys a post-win cookie and Hill weeps in the hall. Team Pettis is now 4-0, leaving Gilbert Melendez to once again talk about trying to keep spirits up in his team’s locker room.

Analysis: Academic and a perfect example of why you seed fighters in this competition. Esparza is the top-ranked fighter in the house and it would have been a waste to have her matched up with one of the other top four at this stage. There is no point having the best beat the best and ending up with a less proven pairing in the finals. Upsets are still going to happen (as we’ve seen), but having No. 3 beat No. 5 or something like that would have been brutal.

Esparza’s wrestling could be the deciding factor in this whole competition – if the other fighters can force her to stand, “The Cookie Monster” could roll through the group to claim the UFC strawweight title.

Next Fight: Still holding control, Team Pettis sets the next matchup, picking Felice Herrig and Heather Clark to have their grudge match.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/10/01/the-ultimate-fighter-season-20-episode-4-top-seed-carla-esparza-takes-on-no-16-angela-hill/feed/0carla_esparzakeyboardkimuraUFC 178 Aftermath: Donald Cerrone’s win further complicates lightweight title chasehttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/09/28/ufc-178-aftermath-donald-cerrones-win-further-complicates-lightweight-title-chase/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/09/28/ufc-178-aftermath-donald-cerrones-win-further-complicates-lightweight-title-chase/#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 05:55:25 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=165029]]>This is what happens when champions get sidelined and the title stops being defended.

On Saturday night at UFC 178, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone picked up a unanimous decision win over Eddie Alvarez in the former Bellator champion’s promotional debut. It was the Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter’s fifth consecutive victory, a run of success that has carried him up the rankings and – in the eyes of many – been enough to earn him consideration as a title challenger.

The problem is that Cerrone is not alone on the short list and the history between the three fighters jockeying for the opportunity to face the winner of the upcoming championship bout between Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez complicates things.

With his devil may care attitude and ultra-aggressive approach in the cage, Cerrone has become a cult figure in the fight community, a guy whose popularity and place in the division transcends wins and losses and brings factors like popularity and how exciting a theoretical championship pairing involving the “kill or be killed” lightweight would be into the discussion.

And those are the key cards Cerrone holds because in terms of results, he would be behind both Khabib Nurmagomedov and Rafael dos Anjos in the pecking order.

Nurmagomedov was originally expected to be the man sharing the cage with Cerrone over the weekend, but the unbeaten grappling phenom suffered a knee injury and was forced to undergo surgery. That opened the door for Alvarez, who might have been able to fast track himself to a title shot with a dominant performance, but failed to capitalize on his opportunity on Saturday night.

Having beaten dos Anjos and everybody else that he’s faced to date, both inside the UFC and otherwise, it’s hard to argue with Nurmagomedov getting the next kick at the championship can – he’s faced increasingly dangerous foes and turned them all aside and would have had the chance to cement his top contender status if he didn’t get injured.

But he did get injured and the division kept chugging along, as it always does. That presented an opportunity for both Cerrone to put another notch in the win column and dos Anjos to complicate things further, which is exactly how things played out.

The wild card in this triumvirate is dos Anjos – a well-rounded Brazilian who just keeps getting better with each successive appearance. He dominated Cerrone when the two met last August, but dropped a subsequent fight to Nurmagomedov. Since then, however, the Kings MMA product has picked up back-to-back wins over Jason High and former champion Benson Henderson. As much as his loss to Nurmagomedov dropped him behind the undefeated American Kickboxing Academy product at the time, his thunderous knockout of Henderson coupled with his decisive performance against Cerrone could have been enough to elevate him to the head of the list of contenders.

But with the title not being defended until December and the winner’s return date a complete unknown, dos Anjos has opted to jump back into the cage against the returning Nate Diaz on the final UFC on FOX fight card of the year. Beating the Stockton native should further solidify his standing in the division and given his recent performances – and Diaz’s inactivity of late – it’s likely that dos Anjos will enter as the favourite, but stranger things have happened and the former TUF winner is certainly capable of collecting a victory, which would only complicate things even further.

Wins and losses would dictate that Nurmagomedov would be at the head of the list, but the with timelines up in the air, chances are he too will take another fight before the congestion at the top gets sorted out. Cerrone is the most obvious dance partner available and “Cowboy” has never met a fight he wasn’t eager to take, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see that happen sometime in the next three or four months, provided Nurmagomedov is back to full health.

From a recognition standpoint, Cerrone would be at the top of the list, although he’s already shared the cage with Pettis, when he came away on the business end of a first-round loss in January 2013.

A championship victory for Melendez would mean there are no previous results that might impede future matchmaking as the former Strikeforce titleholder has only shared the Octagon with two individuals – Henderson and Diego Sanchez, neither of whom are in the championship picture at the moment.

Unfortunately, none of this can be sorted out until Pettis and Melendez lock horns, something they still won’t do for another two months and change. It feels like this fight has been on the books for an eternity and the prolonged wait for its completion because of the combatants being coaches on this season of The Ultimate Fighter only makes matters worse.

While having champions tied to the show made sense at times in the past, this was a season that would have been fine without Pettis and Melendez in charge of teams and the UFC could have used a lightweight title defense or two as a pay-per-view headliner in the time between their casting and the eventual clash.

Pettis has yet to defend the title he won in his hometown of Milwaukee at UFC 164 in August 2013, creating a 16-month stretch with the lightweight title out of circulation. Those kinds of pauses aren’t particularly good in any weight class and they’re poison in a division as deep, competitive and constantly shifting as the 155-pound ranks.

The logjam at the top of the list of contenders will be cleared in the coming months and one of these three will likely be the next to challenge for the lightweight title, but getting to that fight will have cost the UFC a couple of viable contenders. Cerrone, dos Anjos and Nurmagomedov are as hot as they’re going to be as potential title challenger right now and the company isn’t able to capitalize on their momentum because the champion is otherwise engaged.

Going forward, keeping champions off The Ultimate Fighter and in the cage as frequently as possible should be the focus. There are enough other factors that can keep champions out of action that the UFC can ill afford to put them on the shelf themselves.

Team Pettis isn’t fond of all the instruction and criticism headed their way during practice and gather as a team to discuss the situation… Heather Clark tries to rally the fighters on Team Melendez into a unit, but her attempts get rebuffed and then she and Rose Namajunas clash heads in training, resulting in a nasty cut for Clark and a black eye for “Thug Rose”… Felice Herrig suggests that the member of Team Pettis hang their panties on the wall as a sign of solidarity…

In the second bout of the season, No. 2 seed Joanne Calderwood grinds out a decision win over Emily Kagan, giving Team Pettis their second straight win and allowing them to maintain control of the fight announcements. For the next bout, Team Pettis sends out former Invicta FC atom weight champion Jessica Penne, who will take on Team Melendez’ Lisa Ellis in a rematch of one of the bloodiest fights in women’s MMA history.

(Roll intro… minus the patented Ultimate Fighter theme song, which is still a nice surprise every episode)

This week’s episode kicks off with the tragic teaser we were given to end last week’s show, as Dana White pulls Bec Rawlings from the Team Melendez locker room and informs her of the passing of her stepdad. Through tears, the Aussie explains that he was suffering from Parkinson’s and the family had hoped that he would survive long enough to see her compete in the UFC Octagon. White exits the room, giving Rawlings time to talk to her mom and when she rejoins her team, Angela Magana suggests the team offer up a prayer for Rawlings and her family.

Back at the house, Jake Shields and the rest of the Team Melendez coaches arrive with flowers and Shields explains that he knows how Rawlings is feeling right now, a the former Strikeforce champ and UFC title challenger lost his dad, Jack, just a few weeks before stepping into the cage against Jake Ellenberger. It was an unexpected gesture and a very touching one at that from the coaches, who get a quick tour of the house while they’re there.

The majority of the episode focuses in on the upcoming rematch between Penne and Ellis, who first fought in April 2012, with Penne earning a TKO stoppage victory. Since then, the 31-year-old Californian has gone 2-1, winning the Invicta FC atomweight title, dropping it to Michelle Waterson and rebounding with a win over Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc. Ellis, meanwhile, has been out of action since that first meeting with Penne, having given birth to a baby daughter named Eleanor.

Throughout the episode, Ellis’ commitment and focus comes into question and even the way she speaks makes you wonder if she’s all the way in when it comes to the competition. She says she’s looking forward to the rematch, but downplays its importance. She talks about wanting to do her best and test herself, and then says there are bigger things than fighting. That’s entirely true, but when you’re in the midst of a competition to become the inaugural UFC strawweight champion, blocking everything else out is essential and the winner is usually the one that can do that the best.

Team Pettis is all smiles in training, holding a 2-0 lead and having seemingly worked out the “over-coaching” issues that plagued them last episode. The UFC lightweight champ is very high on Penne, suggesting that she’s the type of fighter that still doesn’t know how good she is, especially when it comes to her power in the striking game. They run through some different techniques and strategies, accentuating Penne’s reach advantage and working on drawing Ellis in.

Back at the house, several members of Team Melendez are gathered in the living room playing what can best be described as a slightly raunchy get-to-know-each-other icebreaker, assembling a list of questions that each person will answer. Heather Clark is trying to organize the activity, wanting to make it a game, rather than just having fun and the rest of the group is tuning her out. She feels a lot like Monica Geller from Friends, completely oblivious to the fact that you don’t always need a ringleader and rules and structure – sometimes you can just have fun and go with the flow.

Clark heads to bed early and the rest of the girls gather in another room and just yap about her, pointing out all the things they dislike about her. This is clearly going to be a situation that continues throughout the year and eventually gets worse, so be prepared.

During her training session, Gilbert Melendez expresses concerns about his charge, Ellis, heading into her fight. She put herself in some bad positions in the first fight and hasn’t been an active competitor since that initial meeting, and he’s not sure she’s focused and really ready for what is about to transpire. They run through some strategy, but Ellis seems a little distant, and “El Nino” is worried.

Fight Day: Penne is focused and Ellis is kind of wavering, echoing their feelings and emotions throughout the episode, and it doesn’t take long to see that Penne is the better of the two once the cage door closes.

Penne is pawing with the jab, following the game plan laid out by her coaches, and Ellis looks tentative. They clinch and battle for position on the cage, taking turns in control position with neither gaining any real advantage or landing anything of substance. Penne looks for a takedown, but Ellis uses the cage to fight it off. She reverses position and looks for the hip toss, but Penne works through as they head to the ground, landing in top position. Working from half guard, the BJJ brown belt under Lucas Leite tries to move to mount, but Ellis hits a sweep, ending on top, but instantly forced to defend a triangle form the bottom.

As soon as Penne starts fishing for the triangle, she’s able to use it to sweep and ends up on Ellis’ back with both hooks in. Ellis stands and tries to shake Penne off, but can’t and eats a few strikes for her troubles. Penne forces her back down to the canvas and Ellis tries to fight the hands, but seems a little resigned to her fate. Penne flattens her out and slips the arm under chin, locking up the rear naked choke and securing the tap to move on to the next round.

Team Pettis moves to 3-0 and congratulates Penne on her victory, while Team Melendez try to keep morale up despite being down 0-3.

In his post-fight assessment of the fight, White suggests that Ellis simply gave up and was looking for a way out, allowing Penne to sink in the choke and end the fight.

Analysis: This was academic. Ellis is a tough veteran, but coming back off an extended layoff and leaving your young daughter at home to fight one of the top competitors in the world is a major test and she just wasn’t up for it. Penne, despite competing a weight class lower throughout her career, is a legitimate threat in this competition because of her size and all-around skill set.

Next Fight: Still maintaining control after another victory, Team Pettis puts up the No. 1 seed Carla Esparza, who entered the competition as the Invicta FC strawweight champion. She’ll take on No. 16 seed Angela Hill of Team Melendez.

Find out what happens next week right here at Keyboard Kimura!

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/09/24/the-ultimate-fighter-season-20-episode-3-jessica-penne-and-lisa-ellis-renew-acquaintances/feed/0Jessica Penne and Lisa ElliskeyboardkimuraUFC 178: The Debut of Eddie Alvarez and the Perception of Non-UFC Fightershttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/09/23/ufc-178-the-debut-of-eddie-alvarez-and-the-perception-of-non-ufc-fighters/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/09/23/ufc-178-the-debut-of-eddie-alvarez-and-the-perception-of-non-ufc-fighters/#commentsTue, 23 Sep 2014 07:01:37 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=164377]]>There are a lot of reasons to be looking forward to UFC 178 this weekend. Chief among them for many is the debut of former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, who will step into the UFC Octagon for the first time against perennial contender Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in the co-main event of the evening.

From a stylistic perspective, this is a fantastic fight – a pairing of two all-action fighters with high finishing rates (Alvarez 84% in wins, Cerrone 79%) that should produce a Fight of the Night caliber contest. Cerrone has the better pure kickboxing and greater submission game, while Alvarez has the edge is straight boxing and wrestling, but chances are this turns into a “who has the bigger set?” contest where technique and sound judgment gets tossed out the window two minutes in and these two just flat out get after it.

But there is something to this fight that is far more compelling than the simple athletic competition and fisticuffs that will transpire under the bright lights in Las Vegas this weekend as well: this is when fight fans get to figure out just how good Eddie Alvarez really is as he steps into the cage with a legitimate Top 10 UFC lightweight for the very first time.

The UFC is far and away the top promotion in mixed martial arts and it is widely accepted that the vast majority of the elite talent in the sport compete under their banner. Though most fans are willing to acknowledge that an organization like Bellator has a handful of quality talents on their roster and that One FC welterweight champion Ben Askren is far too good to be facing relative nobodies in Asia, where those fighters would rank if they competed in the UFC is a constant topic of debate because for all the obsessing and analyzing we do about this sport, there is really no way to know for sure until they set foot in the Octagon and we see what happens.

Alvarez has long been considered one of the top lightweights outside of the UFC – a Top 10 talent and potentially more, but it was hard to place him properly when he was beating guys like Josh Neer and Roger Huerta early in his Bellator run. His last four fights have provided a little more clarity, as Alvarez has split a pair of contests with Michael Chandler and earned dominant stoppages over Shinya Aoki and Patricky Freire.

Most reasonable MMA fans would agree that the three-fight winning streak he carries into Saturday’s showdown with Cerrone is, at the very least, on par with posting a trio of wins over Top 25-level UFC talent – Chandler and Aoki are on the shortlist of top non-UFC lightweights and Freire is tough-as-nails, though a notch below the elite. But there is no way to know that for sure, and that’s what makes Alvarez’ migration to the UFC such an interesting story to follow and this pairing with Cerrone the perfect matchup to welcome him to big leagues.

“Cowboy” has cemented his standing as a Top 10 lightweight, posting an 11-3 record since moving to the UFC after being a perennial title threat in the WEC before that. He’s beaten some solid talent along the way, but he’s also failed to get by the very best he’s faced, as all six of his career setbacks have come against Top 5 level talents (at the time they fought) – Jamie Varner, Benson Henderson (twice), Nate Diaz, Anthony Pettis and Rafael dos Anjos. That makes him the ideal litmus test for someone like Alvarez, as pretty much everyone agrees that Cerrone is a Top 10 guy who falls just outside of the championship tier, for the time being.

By Sunday morning, no one will have to wonder about where Alvarez fits in the pecking order of the 155-pound ranks – a win over Cerrone will rocket him up the rankings and potentially set him up as a title challenger, while I loss will put a temporary ceiling on how high he can climb within the division.

As much as having multiple thriving organizations and fighters having a choice among quality organizations to work for is best for the sport long-term, there are very few fans that don’t want to see all the best fighters in the sport competing under one roof. While the UFC already has most of those talents under contract, no one would suggest that it wouldn’t be even better with Askren and Douglas Lima added to the welterweight ranks and Chandler, Will Brooks and Justin Gaethje on the lightweight roster.

Where the champions from organizations like Bellator, World Series of Fighting and One FC fall in the UFC hierarchy? The only truly fair answer is that we don’t know for sure – everyone has their own opinions and theories, but the truth is that we tend to undervalue anyone that doesn’t fight in the UFC because it is far and away the top organization in the sport and home to most of the elite fighters on the planet.

We did it with the fighters that came over from the WEC – Carlos Condit wasn’t considered a Top 10 welterweight when he moved to the UFC, despite the fact that “The Natural Born Killer” arrived on an eight-fight winning streak and wearing championship gold around his waist. Same goes for Cerrone and Henderson when they joined the lightweight ranks after the final WEC event.

Despite watching several of the elite fighters from the WEC become champions and perennial contenders in the UFC after getting acclimated, we did the same thing again with the fighters that made the move to the UFC from Strikeforce. While fighters like Nick Diaz, Gilbert Melendez and Alistair Overeem received immediate pushes as title threats, others like Daniel Cormier, Luke Rockhold and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza have been forced to establish themselves within their new divisions, regardless of their accomplishments under the Strikeforce banner.

We’re even seeing it in the case of Alvarez, who debuted in the UFC Fighter Rankings last week at No. 14 in the lightweight division, behind the likes of Jim Miller, Edson Barboza, Rustam Khabilov and Jorge Masvidal, among others.

It’s understandable to a degree and something that happens in sports like hockey and basketball to a certain extent as well, although the likelihood of the top player in the KHL or Euro League being MVP candidates in the NHL and NBA is less than that of a fighter competing beyond the walls of the UFC jumping into the Octagon and become a champion. The most apt comparison might be standout players competing in smaller conferences in the NCAA putting up big numbers against lesser competition, though they too are less likely to succeed when they make the jump to the next level than someone in Alvarez’ position.

And that’s what makes his debut this weekend so compelling.

After this weekend, we won’t have to speculate about where he stands anymore.

The coaches spent some time with the fighters and teams were picked, with Carla Esparza going first overall to Team Pettis.

UFC President Dana White announces that for the first time in TUF history, the contestants have been seed and the first-round match-ups pre-determined. He also reminds the competitors that this season, they’re fighting to become the inaugural UFC women’s bantamweight champion.

Team Melendez calls on No. 3 seed Tecia Torres in a match-up against No. 14 seed Randa Markos of Team Pettis. After three close rounds, Markos is awarded the decision, kicking things off with a major upset. With control, Team Pettis tabs Joanne Calderwood, the No. 2 seed, to fight next. She’ll face off against Team Melendez’ Emily Kagan.

(Roll intro… minus the patented Ultimate Fighter theme song, which was a nice surprises this season)

I feel like a lot of this episode was about setting up future stories and drama – from Heather Clark trying to rally her teammates to form a unit and not share secrets with the other side to Felice Herrig suggesting all the girls hang their panties in the Team Pettis locker room as a sign of solidarity… because training together and living together every day for six weeks doesn’t help you come together as a group enough; only panties on the wall can do that.

No one really digs what Clark has to say because (1) they have friends on both teams and (2) as Rose Namajunas points out, they could very well end up fighting teammates at some point, so it really is an “everybody for themselves” competition. I remember back in Season 14, the guys on Team Bisping really didn’t like TJ Dillashaw’s gamesmanship when it came to picking his fight, but it worked, he got through to the final and look at him now. It’s a dog-eat-dog situation and as much as you’re going to get friendly and train together, Namajunas’ mindset is the right one to have heading into this kind of competition.

The members of Team Pettis experience some frustration during training as they feel they’re unable to build a rhythm with the constant interruptions and critiques. The next day, they address the issue with head coach Anthony Pettis and the rest of the coaches, and “Showtime” tells them the advice is take it or leave it. He’s being very diplomatic, but you can see from his reaction and the look on Duke Roufus’ face sitting on the couch that they’re not overly impressed with the immediate complaints.

In Team Melendez’ practice, Namajunas and Clark are rolling and clash heads, leading to the former coming away with a nasty shiner and the latter getting split open and bloodied. If you’ve been paying close attention already this season, you’ve noticed Clark sporting a square bandage over her eye already because – surprise, surprise – how you see the episodes isn’t exactly the sequence everything has been filmed. This is reality TV after all…

Calderwood and Kagan are profiled and they are very different fighters on the same path.

“JoJo” is an unbeaten rising star from Scotland that many expect to make it a long way in this competition. She’s quiet and sweet, but a terror in the cage, usually coming forward aggressively with her striking. Kagan, on the other hand, is a 33-year-old Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter with just four bouts (3-1) over her first two years as a professional fighter. She a grinder, through and through, and that’s the approach Team Melendez wants her to take in this one – get in close and make it ugly.

Fight Day: Both come out tentative to start – Calderwood looking to establish her range, Kagan aiming to circle and move, keeping her off balance. Once they start throwing, Calderwood is the one coming forward and landing the cleaner blows, despite the cheers indicating the contrary by Gilbert Melendez. They fight in the clinch at times and again it’s Calderwood landing the bigger shots and working from out in front, dictating the terms of the bout. 10-9 Calderwood on my scorecard.

Between rounds, Melendez tells Kagan she won the round, but it was close. I’m never keen on this strategy in tight frames, especially in a two-round bout. Tell her to go out there and bomb, take it out of the judges hands, especially if you’re not certain she won the frame.

The second starts quicker and after clinching up, Calderwood gets a takedown and works for a kimura on the left wrist. She’s got the wrong grip and can’t complete, and Kagan ends up standing up, lifting Calderwood on her shoulders and slamming her in the center of the cage with some amplitude. The trouble is that the lanky Scot latches on to a reverse triangle choke. Again, her technique is off, but it forces Kagan to defend and minimizes what she’s able to do offensively.

The remainder of the frame – a good two minutes at least – is spent in this position, with Kagan trying to rotate away from the choke and mount some offense from the top while still being trapped in a loose choke. Why she didn’t work to pry her head free at some point is beyond me. The horn sounds, the fight is over and Calderwood takes a majority decision with scores of 20-18, 20-18 and 19-19. For the record, I had her winning the fight as well.

Analysis: This was a safe, effective victory for the talented Calderwood – she did enough to get through to the next round, didn’t pick up any injuries and still has room to improve. Kagan showed heart, but she just didn’t have enough firepower and offensive go to steal this one away from the higher seed.

Next Up: Still maintaining control, Team Pettis selects Jessica Penne to fight next, setting up a rematch of one of the bloodiest fights in WMMA history with Lisa Ellis. The “next time” trailer also informs us that Bec Rawlings’ stepdad passed away, rocking the Australian fighter and likely putting her at a decision of whether to stay on the show or head home to be with her mum and family.

Last night was the debut of the historic 20th season of The Ultimate Fighter.

This season not only marks the first time there has been an all-female cast, but also represents the first time ever that the competitors are fighting for a championship belt, as the winner of the tournament will become the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight (115 pounds) champion.

The first episode of the season is always great because you get an introduction to many of the competitors and that was no different here, as several of the 16 cast members were profiled, including a handful that I mentioned as possible favourites and dark horse contenders when previewing the season on Tuesday. In addition to getting a brief look at the tryout process and a few members of the initial group of eight fighters brought onto the show directly from Invicta FC, this initial episode also laid out an important shift in how the competition will be laid out this season.

Unlike previous years where the coaches picked their entire team and determined the match-ups themselves, TUF 20 marks the first time the competitors have been seeded in advance of the competition and the opening round bouts have been established before the teams have been picked. As a result, the opponent of whoever was picked automatically ended up on the other team, leading to each coach only selecting four members of their squads.

As much as I understand what those who dislike the seeding system were saying on Twitter during last night’s premiere, I personally love the idea. There is a title at stake and while ranking the fighters and scheduling the first round fights doesn’t guarantee the higher seeds are going to advance, it also eliminates the possibility of the top two fighters in the competition squaring off in the elimination round, causing one of them to get bounced early.

And really, seeding the fighters follows the traditional, sporting approach taken with tournaments. The NCAA basketball tournament seeds all 64 teams, as do tennis, wrestling, and countless other sport. On top of that, having a bracket and seeding makes it easier to follow at home since you know the opening round match-ups and can project potential fights in the future rounds based on what side of the bracket each of the fighters is on.

Because this episode was largely about introducing the competitors and getting the tournament bracket set up, there wasn’t that much time for in-house drama.

No – that isn’t a complaint.

The stage has already been set for the longstanding feud between Felice Herrig and Heather Jo Clark to continue and the teaser that aired over the last few days showed that there is some definite in-fighting and clique building that takes place over this season, so getting a reprieve in Episode 1 is fine by me.

The second half of the two-hour premiere was dedicated to setting up the initial fight of the season, a match-up selected by Team Melendez pitting their first selection, No. 3 seed Tecia Torres (4-0) against Team Pettis’ Randa Markos (4-1), the lone Canadian in the cast and the No. 14 seed.

Torres is a gifted striker training out of American Top Team and one of the favourites to win the whole thing, having already earned wins over Herrig and Rose Namajunas, as well as Paige VanZant, who went directly to the UFC because she was too young (she’s only 20) to compete on TUF.

Not much was expected of Markos heading into the house, as the 29-year-old Iraqi-born fighter is just 4-1 in her professional career with her lone loss coming to fellow cast member Justine Kish. A solid grappler, the Windsor, Ontario native fought primarily on smaller shows prior to making the cut for TUF 20, unlike several of the more notable talents in the house who gained exposure competing under the Invicta FC banner.

As mentioned earlier, however, the seeding of these fighters didn’t end up meaning anything as it was Markos that emerged from a gruelling three-round battle to pick up the decision win and start Season 20 off with a massive upset.

The first round saw Torres do solid work off her back after getting taken down, trapping Markos in an inverted triangle and landing a steady stream of punches and elbows while the Canadian mostly maintained top position and scored with a few late knees to the midsection. Scoring from my couch, I had it 10-9 Torres.

In the second, Markos came out more aggressive, pressing forward and using a caught kick to execute a takedown and land in dominant position. For the rest of the round, Markos controlled the action on the canvas. Unlike the first, she was the one doing the damage, fending off the feisty Torres’ attempts to re-guard and escape before ending up in mount, where she finished the frame dropping elbows from above. Couch judging had it 10-9 Markos, 19-19 after two and off to sudden victory and the judges saw it the same way… thankfully.

The final five minutes were close with Markos once again being the one coming forward on the feet and ultimately completing a couple of nice takedowns. While Torres was always active from bottom – searching for sweeps and submissions, trying to nullify Markos’ positioning – the No. 14 seed worked hard to keep the ATT product planted on the mat and stuck in scrambles. Late in the frame, Markos hit a nice lateral drop, creating a scramble that ended with her in mount as the final horn sounded.

Both women raised their hands triumphantly at the end of the bout, but it was Markos who was awarded the win, with all three officials scoring the final frame in her favour. For the record, I did too.

And just like that, one of the top picks and popular choices to emerge as the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion has been bounced from the competition, proving what I told my wife when she suggested seeding the fighters put the lower-seeded women at an immediate disadvantage: don’t let the seedings fool you.

Everyone in this competition is pretty evenly matched and there isn’t a great deal of separation between No. 1 and No. 16; Markos proved that by pulling the upset in Wednesday night’s debut episode and there are sure to be other lower seeded females that emerge victorious as the season progresses.

All in all, this is the first time in a long time that I’m excited about a season of The Ultimate Fighter and I know a lot of people that feel the same way. The fights mean something this time and the competitors are some of the best in the division, instead of a rag tag band of regional fighters looking to punch their ticket to the big stage.

Seeing the first episode makes me renew my objection to casting Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez as coaches, however, as there is less coaching strategy at play this year with there being an actual tournament bracket and the fact that these women are fighting for a championship serving as a big enough hook to lure people into the show.

I’m sure they’ll do fine and I liked their cornering in the opening fight, but you could have put anyone in there as coaches this time around and it wouldn’t have made a difference – people will be tuning in to see the actual fights, not the interactions between the two men that will eventually fight for the lightweight title and that just reminds me that we’ve gone a full year without Pettis defending the belt he won last summer and we’ve still got another three months to wait before “Showtime” and “El Nino” square off in the Octagon.

Regardless of that one criticism, this was a great start to what should be an outstanding season on The Ultimate Fighter: A Champion Will Be Crowned.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/09/10/the-ultimate-fighter-20-episode-1-recap-championship-chase-begins/feed/1RANDA MARKOSkeyboardkimuraUFC: Anthony Pettis, The Ultimate Fighter and the Lightweight Title Picturehttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/08/26/ufc-anthony-pettis-the-ultimate-fighter-and-the-lightweight-title-picture/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/08/26/ufc-anthony-pettis-the-ultimate-fighter-and-the-lightweight-title-picture/#commentsTue, 26 Aug 2014 07:01:36 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=161216]]>Anthony Pettis became the UFC lightweight champion on August 31, 2013 when he submitted Benson Henderson in the first round of the UFC 164 main event in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He hasn’t fought since.

He won’t fight until December 6 when he squares off with Gilbert Melendez in the co-main event of UFC 182.

In the 360 days since “Showtime” claimed the title and ascended to the top of the deepest, most competitive division in the organization, the lightweight ranks have remained as hyper-active as always and his presence on the sidelines has created another logjam in the 155-pound ranks, one that likely won’t be cleared up any time soon.

This isn’t the first time a title being held-up has caused contenders to pile up in the division, as the immediate rematch between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard in the wake of their championship draw at UFC 125 put the title chase on hold three years ago. That being said, this is the first time that the UFC has been active in creating the situation, as Pettis’ absence from the Octagon coincides with his appointment to coach opposite Melendez on Season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter.

Selecting coaches for TUF is a tricky proposition, as you want fighters that casual fans might recognize and to use reality TV competition as a 13-week lead-in to the inevitable bout between the two coaches. In a time where promoting events is becoming increasingly difficult for myriad reasons, the opportunity to hype a fight for three months is a godsend for the UFC, especially when it’s a bout scheduled for pay-per-view.

The downside, however, is that selecting a champion for the role means one less titleholder to headline the events between their selection and eventual return, as well as running the risk of encountering what is currently happening in the lightweight division.

In the time since Pettis won the title, the fighters currently ranked in the Top 10 have fought a combined 25 times, with Donald Cerrone and Myles Jury poised to add another appearance each to their fight totals before the champion makes his first title defense. While the first part of Pettis’ hiatus from competition came as a result of an injury, this current stretch of inactivity is manufactured and has created a situation where the road to fighting for the lightweight championship keeps getting longer and longer.

This past weekend, Rafael dos Anjos used a flying knee and clubbing left hand to stop former champion Benson Henderson in the first round of their main event pairing in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was the type of triumphant performance that should carry the surging Brazilian to the head of the list of contenders, given that Henderson has been entrenched as the champion or No. 1 contender in the division for close to three years. Because Pettis and Melendez won’t fight for another three-plus months, dos Anjos will likely have to step into the cage again to maintain his place in the pecking order.

And figuring out where he sits on the list of contenders is a challenging exercise.

In addition to beating Henderson, dos Anjos also boasts a victory over Cerrone, though “Cowboy” is inexplicable ranked ahead of him in the latest edition of the UFC Fighter Rankings. Of course, the Kings MMA product also lost to No. 3-ranked lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov not too long ago, which could conceivably put him at the head of the list of contenders. Unfortunately, Nurmagomedov suffered a knee injury earlier this summer and was forced to undergo surgery, which will sideline the unbeaten Dagestani fighter until the middle of next year at the earliest.

With Nurmagomedov out of the equation for the time being, dos Anjos appears to be the logical choice for the next title shot, given his win over Cerrone, but wins and losses aren’t the chief metric used in selected challengers. Marketability plays a major role in things, which means that despite his loss to dos Anjos last September, Cerrone could find himself as the top contender if he’s able to get by newcomer Eddie Alvarez next month at UFC 178. The same applies for the former Bellator champion if he’s able to earn an impressive victory in his Octagon debut as well, as both he and Cerrone are more established, recognizable names than dos Anjos.

Things aren’t any clearer below this current top tier of challengers either, as Henderson remains in the mix, Bobby Green and Myles Jury are climbing the ranks thanks to solid winning streaks, and veterans like Josh Thomson and Jim Miller are capable of quickly putting together a couple quality wins to get themselves back into the conversation. And that says nothing of Nate Diaz, the former title challenger who wants a new contract and big name fights after seeing his friend and teammate Melendez threaten to jump ship to Bellator and get rewarded with a fresh deal, spot on TUF 20 and a shot at the belt.

While the consensus is that all of this is too convoluted to sort out on paper, there is one way to avoid situations like this in the future: stop assigning champions to coaching roles on The Ultimate Fighter.

For starters, it means one more champion available to headline major shows. Given the decline in pay-per-view numbers and lack of interest in some of the UFC titleholders as main event options, having an electric athlete like Pettis as an option would be a positive. Additionally, the upcoming season is the first season in quite some time that hasn’t needed marquee names as coaches given that it is the introduction of a band new division and the 16 competitors are fighting to become the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion.

As for the divisional picture, if there had been a lightweight title fight at some point in the last three, some of the chaos and congestion could have been avoided. Even if you simply keep the Pettis-Melendez matchup together and schedule it for July, that means the winner of that contest could—barring injury—be prepping to fight one of the current crop of potential challengers right now. There also would have been a trickle down effect in the matchmaking, knowing that another contender would be required later four-to-six months down the line.

And the loser of said hypothetical bout would be back in the mix, though a couple fights away from challenging for the title again, which helps bring some order to things.

While keeping champions from coaching on TUF isn’t a cure-all, it certainly makes it easier to keep things moving along and that should always be the goal. With the belt being defended, you’re able to work around some of the potential conflicts and create match-ups that produce more viable contenders.

Having two or three options to choose from in a division is always great, but not when all of those options have easily identifiable holes in their credentials.

Titles need to be defended as regularly as possible—it’s as simple as that.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/08/26/ufc-anthony-pettis-the-ultimate-fighter-and-the-lightweight-title-picture/feed/0anthony_pettiskeyboardkimuraUFC’s Best Month Ever and 10 Things We Learned This Weekhttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/27/ufcs-best-month-ever-and-10-things-we-learned-this-week/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/27/ufcs-best-month-ever-and-10-things-we-learned-this-week/#commentsMon, 28 Jul 2014 00:59:02 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=159507]]>Saturday night made it official – July 2014 was the best month in UFC history.

Without even going too in-depth on things, here’s a quick look at what transpired in the last 27 days:

Chris Weidman defeats Lyoto Machida

Ronda Rousey mauls Alexis Davis

Frankie Edgar dominates B.J. Penn

“The Prodigy” retires

Women’s strawweight division debuts

“Cowboy” Cerrone stops Jim Miller

UFC Dublin happens

Conor McGregor continues to shine

Robbie Lawler earns rematch with Johny Hendricks

Anthony Johnson frightens all light heavyweights

That’s just what happened in the Octagon – it doesn’t even including the various fight announcements and random things that took place outside of the cage, some of which will be addressed later in this column.

Five events with no more than 10 days off between shows, a ton of fun, exciting fights from unexpected and under-the-radar sources, plus a couple of “statement” outings make the last month an absolute home run for the UFC. It was a run of awesomeness that even the most cynical fan would have difficulty complaining about and that’s saying something because there are some fans that always find something to complain about.

July was a “this is why I love this sport” month – a showcase of the best of what the UFC has to offer in every way. From the killer crowd inside the O2 in Dublin and outpouring of respect and tributes to Penn following his retirement to dominant physical performances from Rousey and others, the last four weeks delivered enough positive moments and serious high spots to last through the rest of the summer.

Of course, that’s not how it works.

The schedule keeps chugging along, leaving little time to reflect on what just happened – the next fight, the next show, the next series of stories and highlights always coming down the pipe. Those great moments get filed away, but they don’t buoy the spirits of fans when subsequent shows don’t match the level of excitement previous events delivered. It’s one of the major downsides of such an ambitious schedule.

When there were only a couple events per month, more time was given to each show, both before and after. More stories were told heading into and coming out of each event and while everyone looked forward to the next date circled on the calendar, great performances and memorable moments didn’t have a 72 hour shelf-life.

Weaker cards aren’t buoyed by the outstanding events that preceded them or the promise of what is yet to come – every fight card is supposed to be a standout affair, even though everyone knows that is impossible. While the UFC has clearly changed how they build fight cards and established event tiers, expectations no longer move with the ebb and flow of the sport.

July was amazing and while there are some quality fights and solid cards on the horizon for August, there’s a very good chance it’s not going to be as good as the last month and that needs to be okay. For there to be loaded fight cards and events that sail beyond all expectations, there have to be shows with fewer big names and the occasional event that is lands somewhere between underwhelming and above average.

Try to keep that in mind once things get underway in August.

Here’s a look at 10 Things We Learned Last Week, starting with some takeaways from Saturday’s UFC on FOX event in San Jose.

1. Robbie Lawler keeps getting better

It’s always been fun to watch Lawler compete – the possibility of a violent ending will forever carry a certain amount of interest – but the reasons for wanting to see Lawler compete are becoming more diverse. While the potential for a sudden, violent ending are still there, we’re also seeing the maturation of a former prospect and a competitor that is turning in his all-time best performance with each subsequent fight.

Lawler halted Matt Brown’s winning streak on Saturday, out-working “The Immortal” over 25 minutes to set up a championship rematch with Johny Hendricks whenever the new champion is ready to return to action. In the process, the 32-year-old continued to show that his development as a fighter and it makes for great entertainment.

This version of Lawler is everything he was expected to be at the outset of his career – a permanently dangerous striker that uses his wrestling defensively and slowly breaks his opponents under a steady barrage of offense and his freakish ability to absorb big shots and smile in return. After the welterweight title slipped through his hands in March, don’t be surprised if Lawler comes out with even greater urgency and drive when he gets his second crack at claiming gold.

2. Anthony Johnson is a scary, scary man

Most anticipated “Rumble” beating Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Many event expected him to do so in dominant fashion. However, few could have predicted it would be so quick and devastating.

Johnson needed just 44 seconds to dispatch the Brazilian veteran, leaving him slumped along the cage after a flurry of uppercuts separated him from consciousness. It was an amazing performance and one that makes you rethink the current landscape in the light heavyweight division. Just two fights into his UFC return, the 30-year-old Georgia native has established himself as a legitimate title threat and a guy that everyone in the division, including the champion and those ahead of him in the rankings, should be afraid to face.

Much like Lawler, this is Johnson finally reaching his full potential and it’s a scary sight to behold.

3. Dennis Bermudez and The Art of the Slow Build

Saturday night, Bermudez earned his seventh consecutive victory with a second-round submission win over Clay Guida. It was his first bout on a UFC main card and his first match-up with a ranked opponent, and while he should have been featured on a main card sooner than this, the UFC deserves a high five for using the slow and steady approach with the former TUF finalist.

Too often, a prospect gets a couple of wins under his or her belt and gets thrown to the wolves – moved up the ladder too far, too fast leading to the inevitable stumble. Bantamweight Erik Perez is a quality recent example, as “Goyito” was dropped in opposite veteran Takeya Mizugaki after three first-round wins against overmatched competition that didn’t last much longer on the UFC roster.

Bermudez was given the opposite treatment and it has paid dividends. While it was clear he had upside during his time on Season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC didn’t rush him along. As a result, Bermudez has gotten progressively better with each appearance and blossomed into a Top 10 featherweight. He garnered more confidence with each fight, each win, each training camp, and now he’s exceeded expectations.

That should be the course more prospects are allowed to follow in the future.

4. Patrick Cummins and the need for measured reactions

Cummins was dropped into an impossible situation for his UFC debut – a match-up with unbeaten former Olympian Daniel Cormier on 10-days notice – and the company did him no favours by pushing a “No – this guy could really beat him!” narrative on the way to the fight. “Durkin” lasted less than two minutes, became the butt of a million jokes, and was dismissed by dozens of online aficionados.

Saturday, the 33-year-old light heavyweight absolutely manhandled Kyle Kingsbury, earning lopsided scores of 30-24 and 30-25 to go along with a 30-27 en route to winning his second fight in the last two months.

Cummins is a legitimate prospect in the 205-pound ranks – a guy with a tremendous base and tons of room to grow, even though he’s a little older than most prospects in this sport. Anyone that ignored the pre-fight bluster surrounding his match with Cormier and refused to write him off after that performance knew this kind of talent was there and it was only a matter of time (and proper match-ups) before it would shine through, just as it has with Ilir Latifi, another emerging light heavyweight that was dropped into his debut on next-to-no notice.

One fight isn’t enough time to get a read on most fighters, and definitely not when they’re plucked from their job as a baker and barista and thrown in with a championship contender.

5. Speaking of Daniel Cormier…

We found out in the middle of last week that “DC” would be replacing Alexander Gustafsson opposite Jon Jones at UFC 178 in September and the anticipation of said fight started to climb Saturday as Cormier manned the desk with Curt Menefee and Brian Stann on FOX.

Hearing the American Kickboxing Academy product talk about training camp and begin trading barbs with the champion on Twitter should have every fight fan counting down the days until those two are locked in the Octagon together with the light heavyweight title on the line. As great as the scheduled rematch between Jones and Gustafsson could have been, this one already feels bigger, probably because Cormier readily embraces the trash talk and engages with Jones on social media, while “The Mauler” is more of a laid back, disengaged type.

For the record: UFC 178 is 62 days away.

6. Conor McGregor’s next test

“The Notorious” played a part in making July the tremendous month it was and managed to remain in the spotlight in the week following his win over Diego Brandao. As expected, the UFC is getting McGregor back in the cage quickly, positioning the burgeoning Irish star opposite Dustin Poirier as one of the other main card fights at UFC 178.

This is the bout everyone expected for the brash featherweight and exactly the type of fight he needs at this point in his skyrocketing career. Turning aside the likes of Marcus Brimage, Max Holloway and Brandao is one thing, but getting the best of a fighter like Poirier is something completely different.

“The Diamond” is a bona fide Top 10 threat and shown steady improvement since relocating to American Top Team, plus he’s more well-rounded and dangerous than anyone McGregor has faced to date. While his personality and panache are always going to keep him in the spotlight, his ability to keep winning as he climbs the ladder is what is going to determine whether McGregor becomes a well-known fighter or a legitimate superstar in this sport.

7. Title shot for Vitor Belfort

From the predictable and disappointing category comes last week’s licensing and subsequent positioning of Vitor Belfort as the next title challenger in the middleweight division.

Without getting into the hypocrisy of Belfort getting a fight booked on the same day Chael Sonnen had the book thrown at him (and then picked up and thrown at him a couple more times just for good measure), I will say that it continues to disappoint me that fighters coming off suspensions are even considered for championship opportunities. Yes, this is the most lucrative fight the UFC could schedule for champion Chris Weidman right now, but shouldn’t the fact that “The Phenom” got popped for elevated levels of testosterone earlier this year (and for a second time in his career) have some kind of impact on the situation?

Make him pass the litany of tests the NSAC promised to administer and win one more fight before giving him a second crack at winning the middleweight title. Let the winner of the fight between Jacare Souza and Gegard Mousasi have next, provided the winner comes away without any injuries, and show just how serious you are about cleaning up the sport and not rewarding cheaters.

8. “Big Event” PPVs

While it might be weird that I’m saying this heading into a month where a pay-per-view has already been scrapped (sorry – postponed…), but it feels like the UFC is starting to move towards building some significantly larger pay-per-view shows and I like it.

As a guy that has written about going with four major PPV shows every year in the past, seeing the UFC load up a couple future events gives me hope that they’re moving in that direction. As much as I haven’t always been the most supportive of having two champions on the same event, if that’s something the UFC is intent on doing, then going all-in makes the most sense and that appears to be what they’re doing.

UFC 181 in December is going to be headlined by Weidman and Belfort, and lightweight champ Anthony Pettis said he and Gilbert Melendez will be fighting that night as well. The annual year-end show – which will take place on January 3, 2015 – is a good bet to feature Hendricks-Lawler II and women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey has expressed interest in competing on that card also.

Personally, I say load ’em up – stick a couple title eliminators and high profile names on those cards and really blow the doors of those bad boys. After all, the current model isn’t producing any massive returns, so why not test drive something different and see how it goes?

9. The Ultimate Fighter Season 20 getting proper push

We got our first glimpse at a trailer for TUF 20 during Saturday’s FOX card and the UFC appears to be giving the strawweight season the promotional push it deserves.

You know how every season tends to have “Team X vs. Team Y” or whatever the conditions of the competition are under the traditional “Ultimate Fighter” logo and lettering? This time around it said, “A Champion Will Be Crowned” – the perfect tagline and selling point for this season and one that needs to remain front and center as it progresses.

This isn’t just another collection of randoms cultivated from the regional ranks fighting for a chance to join an overstocked division – these are some of the top 115-pound competitors on the planet competing to be the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion, the first time in the show’s long history that a belt will be awarded to the winner. That needed to be the hook from Day One and it appears that is how the UFC is going to promote the season.

10. Ready for a break

As awesome as July was, it’s great that we’re starting August with a couple weeks off, even if this stretch only exists because the plug was pulled on UFC 176.

For one, it gives everyone time to recharge their batteries and look forward to UFC fights again, but it also means a little more time to promote some of the stories and narratives that would otherwise get swept under the rug if we didn’t have any down time between shows.

Without events to hype (and event-related serial pieces to write), it means more commentary and evergreen content here over the next couple weeks, as well as everywhere else that you consume MMA news and information. Be sure to check it and let me know what you like and don’t like.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/27/ufcs-best-month-ever-and-10-things-we-learned-this-week/feed/0brown_lawlerkeyboardkimuraUFC Lists: 10 Most Consistently Entertaining Fightershttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/15/ufc-lists-10-most-consistently-entertaining-fighters/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/15/ufc-lists-10-most-consistently-entertaining-fighters/#commentsTue, 15 Jul 2014 07:01:42 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=158383]]>In putting together yesterday’s 5 Reasons to Watch piece, I cited Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone as one of the most must-see fighters in the UFC – a guy that always brings it and never seems to have a boring fight. In the very next point, I suggested that his opponent tomorrow night in Atlantic City, Jim Miller, could very well be on that list as well.

And that’s when I knew I had to put an actual list together.

A couple things before getting to the actual Top 10:

a) This is my list – not some definitive, “these are the only people that could possibly be consider consistently entertaining” collection where I’m going to track you down and call you stupid if you disagree. It’s my list. You likely have one of your own (and I encourage you to share it with me in the comments below) that looks a little – or a lot – different based on your preferences and tastes… and that’s cool.

b) This isn’t a ranking – the first person mentioned isn’t No. 1 or No. 10, they’re just the 10 fighters that I find the most consistently entertaining, so please save the “No way is Fighter A more entertaining than Fighter B” assaults for another day. They’re not being ranked, just listed… there is a difference.

With those two clarifications out of the way, let’s get down to business: here are my picks for the most consistently entertaining fighters in the UFC.

Ronda Rousey

I’m leading off with the women’s bantamweight champion because (i) she’s used as the feature image for this piece which means you know she’s on the list, so why bury her somewhere down near the bottom and (ii) she’s coming off a 16-second destruction of Alexis Davis at UFC 175 a couple weeks ago.

Before that, Rousey ran through unbeaten fellow Olympian Sara McMann in just over a minute. Prior to that, she earned her second win over Miesha Tate. Every time the 26-year-old product of the Glendale Fight Club readies to step into the Octagon, there is an electricity around the event. Doesn’t matter if she’s the headlining act or not – Rousey has become must-see TV for fight fans and she delivers every time.

While some may be losing interest as the gap between the champion and her very good, but still not good enough challengers continues to grow, I’m more intrigued than ever — I want to see just how dominant she can be and how long Rousey can continue making a collection of skilled fighters look like rank amateurs inside the Octagon.

Donald Cerrone

Might as well get the other “already announced” member of this list out of the way next, right?

“Cowboy” is as entertaining as they come. I have seen every one of Cerrone’s fights dating back to his WEC 38 bout with Jamie Varner and of those 20 fights, I can’t pick out any where I wasn’t excited before or during the contest. That’s an insane run of consistency and there is no reason to believe it will ever stop either. It’s not in Cerrone’s fabric to be boring and that’s something fans genuinely appreciate.

Cerrone has a “kill or be killed” mentality and that translates into the cage, turning both his wins and loses into fights you look back on fondly. No matter who he’s fighting, you can’t look away because you know Cerrone is going to step forward and look to finish or go down swinging. His losses to Benson Henderson, Anthony Pettis and Nate Diaz were as entertaining to watch as his wins over Dennis Siver, Melvin Guillard or Edson Barboza, and tomorrow night’s showdown with Jim Miller should follow suit.

Jon Jones

The light heavyweight champion is on one of those “once in a lifetime” kind of runs right now and pretty much has been for his entire UFC career. Every time Jones steps into the cage, he delivers in one way or another and regardless of whether you love him, hate him or have no strong emotional opinion of him either way, there is no denying that “Bones” brings excitement fight after fight.

From the start when he was launching dudes around the cage and making it up on the fly to the present where he’s picking elite opponents apart and still mixing in new techniques no one else has been trying, the immensely talented 26-year-old has earned his must-see TV designation.

Jones earned that nod from me back when he fought Matt Hamill and hit that heavy outside trip that put “The Hammer” on the mat midway through the first round. That fight was supposed to be his step up, his stern challenge and Jones thoroughly outclassed the former Ultimate Fighter contestant and he’s continued doing the same to the best the 205-pound weight class has to offer ever since.

Carlos Condit

Lots of fighters have random nicknames that don’t necessarily reflect who they are as a fighter or anything about what they deliver inside the cage. Then there is Condit, who lives up to his billing as “The Natural Born Killer” from the minute his music hits and he starts making the march to the Octagon until the final result is announced.

What cements Condit’s place on this list for me is that he’s not a one-trick pony — he could finish an opponent right out of the gate like when he blasted Dong Hyun Kim, get you late like he did against Rory MacDonald or put the fear of god into you with an out-of-nowhere headkick like the one that dropped Georges St-Pierre at UFC 154. He can knock you out, submit you or beat you over the distance and he genuinely loves the competition and being in there trying to prove himself.

He was a must-see fighter before he got hurt and he will be again once he returns.

Matt Brown

There are not enough words to describe how impressive and entertaining the Matt Brown Revival has been over the last couple years. Here’s a guy that was on the brink of being released and now he’s a win away from challenging for the UFC welterweight title and every time he crosses the threshold into the Octagon, a festival of violence ensues.

Speaking of guys that genuinely fit their nicknames, Brown is as much “The Immortal” as Condit is “The NBK” and it’s a goddamn travesty that we never got to see the two of them throw down. I honestly believe it would have produced my all-time favourite fight of ever. His upcoming fight with Robbie Lawler – who earns an honourable mention for this list – is bound to be one of the most entertaining bouts of the year, just as his comeback win over Erick Silva was back in May.

Anthony Pettis

When you’re the architect of the greatest single move I’ve ever seen executed inside a cage, you’re making the most consistently exciting fighters list. I will say this, however: Pettis needs to stay healthy and get back to doing freakishly impressive things inside the cage because the exemption he earned with “The Showtime Kick” and some of his other quality wins is starting to run out as he spends more and more time on the sidelines.

The lightweight champion is an inventive, flashy striker with good power, a better-than-you-know submission game and the kind of charisma and panache that makes him a must-see attraction, but like I said, he needs to get healthy and get back into the cage.

Look at it like this: he and Donald Cerrone migrated to the UFC from the WEC at the same time. Since then, Pettis has fought five times, including beating “Cowboy” in a bout where he hit a knee to the body where he sprung off the cage in close quarters. By comparison, Wednesday will be Cerrone’s 14th fight under the UFC banner. Even if you don’t want to compare him to a “fight hungry” wild man like Cerrone, his chief rival Benson Henderson has doubled him up in terms of appearances.

When he’s healthy, there are few that top Pettis in terms of the excitement they bring to the cage, but unfortunately those bouts feel all too sporadic.

The Diaz Brothers

Alright, so including Nick and Nate as one saves me from having a list of my Top 11 most consistently exciting fighters in the UFC, but I figure since they fight similarly, dropping them in here as one entry would be acceptable.

Part of the draw of Stockton’s own is the unpredictability that comes with watching them compete – while you know you’re going to get punches in bunches and lots of body work, you never know if Nate is going to lock up a triangle choke and flip off the camera or whether Nick is going to ask his opponent, `Oh, we’re throwing spinning s*** now?’ It’s part of who they are as fighters and adds to the package.

If they stopped mean mugging and calling their opponents on in the middle of fights, the Diaz Brothers would still be highly entertaining, top-ranked talents that had a chance to make this list, but when you add in the mid-fight trash talk and bravado, they’re undeniable additions.

Joe Lauzon

When you have 12 bonus awards on your resume, it’s pretty safe to say you’re one of the most consistently entertaining fighters on the roster.

In 2012, you could argue that Lauzon was involved in the two best fights of the year – his UFC 155 loss to Jim Miller and his UFC on FOX win over Jamie Varner. The former won Fight of the Year at the World MMA Awards and the latter should have been in the running as well and the common thread is the southpaw from East Bridgewater, Massachusetts that doesn’t have any quit in him and looks for ways to finish fights from the second the bout begins.

Here’s one of the ways I judge whether a fighter is must-see TV material: when their name gets mentioned or brought up in a “hey, where has Fighter X been?” do I get all antsy and twitchy because I’ve just realized it has been far too long since I saw them fight and now have an urge to watch them compete again?

That’s the reaction I have when Lauzon has breaks in his schedule and why the fact that he hasn’t fought since last December and won’t fight until September 5 makes me a little squirrelly; I need my Joe Lauzon fix.

Cain Velasquez

This one might be a choice some people debate, but remember – it’s my list and for my money, the heavyweight champion is as consistently exciting as they come. I will say this, however: Velasquez is in that Anthony Pettis, hurt too often territory where his greatness and impressive abilities are starting to take a backseat to how often he’s out of action.

What puts Cain on this list for me is that he’s not just a one-punch knockout guy. He’s got that in his arsenal, but he’s also got 25 minutes of beating the brakes off you he can turn to as well. Or he can take you down and elbow you into oblivion like he did to Antonio Silva… twice.

Velasquez is that rare breed of heavyweights that is able to work at a ridiculous pace and not be taking big gulps of air seven minutes into the fight. He throws combinations, can kill you along the fence as you’re grinding it out, and blends in his wrestling exceptionally well. As much as he has the traditional heavyweight “everyone loves seeing big boys throwing bombs” in his repertoire, he also has the technical skills to just completely outwork his opponents like top level middleweights and that is something I have to watch each and every chance I get.

Anderson Silva

C’mon – do I really need to explain this one? He’s “The GOAT” and authored some of the most impressive moments in UFC history.

Hit me up with your list in the comments section – tell me who you’d add or remove and why.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/15/ufc-lists-10-most-consistently-entertaining-fighters/feed/5ronda_rousey_readykeyboardkimuraUFC 176: Cancellation not just a result of current schedulehttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/09/ufc-176-cancellation-not-just-a-result-of-current-schedule/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/09/ufc-176-cancellation-not-just-a-result-of-current-schedule/#commentsWed, 09 Jul 2014 16:24:18 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=157990]]>For the second time in UFC history, the organization has been forced to pull the plug on an impending pay-per-view event as the company made the decision to postpone UFC 176 on Tuesday afternoon. The official announcement was made on UFC.com.

Scheduled to take place on August 2 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, the event was put in jeopardy when featherweight champion and announced headliner Jose Aldo was forced to withdraw from his championship bout opposite Chad Mendes earlier this month. In the announcement detailing the cancellation of the event, it was stated that the bout between Aldo and Mendes, a rematch of their UFC 142 encounter which the Brazilian won by first-round knockout, would remain intact and be booked at a late, unspecified date.

As you would expect, the reaction online has been primarily focused on the UFC’s schedule and how the high number of events the organization is running is to blame for this situation. Basically, the argument is if the UFC wasn’t doing three or four shows a month, every event would have more stars, lessening the blow when a major name drops out.

As per always, the UFC is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Pull the plug and they’re at fault for not having enough stars and spreading the roster too thin. Keep the event on the schedule and move forward without a truly marquee main events and it’s “how dare you expect us to pay for this?!” while criticizing the company for not pulling the plug.

There are two interesting pieces to this (at least to me) that always leave me thoroughly confused in these situations:

1) The number of PPV events over the last few years has remained relatively steady, with Fight Night shows accounting for the increased number of events on the UFC calendar, and

2) There are a finite number of champions and stars available as headliners to the UFC with fans and critics making it abundantly clear in the last few months that only a select few fighters are “worthy” of headlining pay-per-view events.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the slew of Fight Night shows on the schedule are taking away any pay-per-view main events. With all due respect to the talent headlining those events, the highest up a pay-per-view fight card any of those bouts are landing is in the co-main event position and there are some that top out at being the middle fight on a PPV main card.

So if that’s the case and the number of PPV shows hasn’t increased at all, can you really argue that it’s simply the amount of events being held that is ultimately responsible for the cancellation of this event? I can’t.

Even if you moved the main events from the next three August events to the UFC 176 fight card, there still isn’t a bout that fits the “PPV Headliner” requirements fans have been holding to for the last year. Sure, it becomes a deeper card overall, but is a main event of Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Gegard Mousasi with Michael Bisping and Cung Le as co-main, Benson Henderson and Rafael dos Anjos in the No. 3 position and Ryan Bader and Ovince Saint Preux as the fourth main card fight enough to move pay-per-view units?

Given that fans and critics have been adamant that only certain champions “should” be headlining PPV events, I can’t see how that main card becomes something fans rush to purchase and arguing otherwise contradicts everything that was argued a month ago when UFC 174 fell well below average numbers. (Note: self-contradiction is a staple in the MMA community, where the “facts to meet your argument” approach runs rampant.)

The greater root cause of all of this (in my opinion) is the current championship landscape and the transition between the previous era and the ascension of the current generation of UFC stars.

Johny Hendricks being hurt stings and having Cain Velasquez and Anthony Pettis out all year hasn’t helped things either. Tethering Pettis to Season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter keeps him out of action until early 2015, meaning that between injuries and obligations, his first 16 months as lightweight champion produced zero fights.

If those three are in the mix as headliners, it takes some of the weight off the fighters that have been shouldering the load so far, like Ronda Rousey and Renan Barao, both of whom put their belts on the line twice already this year. Barao is coming back for a third fight in seven months when he takes on new champ TJ Dillashaw next month in Sacramento at UFC 177, and after that, Jon Jones makes his second appearance of the year in his rematch with Alexander Gustafsson.

But it’s not like you can predict when these guys are going to get hurt.

You can’t predict Velasquez is going to miss a year after another shoulder surgery or that Hendricks will have to deal with a torn biceps muscle, which he fought with at UFC 171 by the way. These things just happen and you have to roll with the punches, but it does leave you thin, especially when there isn’t a wealth of established former champions and headliners to draw from when the going gets tough.

There’s no “Anderson Silva moving up to light heavyweight to headline opposite Stephan Bonnar” out there that could have saved UFC 176. In addition to the champions that are out of commission or already accounted for, established fighters like Junior dos Santos and Vitor Belfort are sidelined for one reason or another, Georges St-Pierre is gone, Nick Diaz is gone, Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva are gone. Couple that with a hesitancy on the part of fans to really get behind some of the new wave of potential headlining talent and this is where you end up.

It’s easy to blame the schedule, but it’s so much more than just the sheer number of events.

It’s not all the UFC’s fault — some of it is bad luck, some of it is the schedule, and some of it is fans simply failing to be as invested in guys like “Jacare” or Benson Henderson or anyone that fights below the 155-pound limit not named Urijah Faber to the point that they’re able to be packaged together with a series of other quality fights to make a pay-per-view event that sells without a championship headliner.

That leaves the UFC no choice but to do the one thing they never want to have to do – cancel an event – and get raked over the coals for it. Of course, had they pressed on and given everyone the hard sell on why UFC 176 was still a really great event, they’d have been skewered even more, regardless of what new bouts they added to the lineup.

Damned if they do. Damned if they don’t.

There isn’t a magic cure-all out there.

Cutting the schedule in half doesn’t make Hendricks healthy or increase fan interest in Demetrious Johnson fights. Sure, you get more depth to every fight card, but everything I’ve heard to this point in the year has been that depth is great, but there has to be that one big fight – that marquee name – that really captures the audiences attention in order to get them to fork over $60 for a pay-per-view.

And for the record, the number of pay-per-view events has been declining over the last five years, from a high of 17 events in 2010 to having 12 on the schedule for this year. Given the desire to have champions headline each PPV show, it’s not unreasonable to hope to get 12 fights out of nine champions – less than two fights a year all around – but even that has been a chore of late.

That isn’t just a function of an overstuffed schedule and it’s time we stop just pointing to the bevy of events on the calendar as the root cause of all the UFC’s issues.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/07/09/ufc-176-cancellation-not-just-a-result-of-current-schedule/feed/5jose_aldokeyboardkimuraEA Sports UFC video game lands a knockouthttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/06/20/ea-sports-ufc-video-game-lands-a-knockout/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/06/20/ea-sports-ufc-video-game-lands-a-knockout/#commentsFri, 20 Jun 2014 22:15:57 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=156455It’s been quite a while since we had a fresh sports franchise, but the landing of EA Sports UFC this week really raises some eyebrows.
Mixed Martial Arts had been given a general go by EA before, but when the …]]>

UFC Light Heavyweight champ Jon Jones is the cover star, along with Alexander Gustaffsson in EA Sports UFC video game, and he looks as real in the game as he can get.

Miesha Tate is just one of the big name fighters in EA Sports UFC game.

Anthony “Showtime” Pettis in EA Sports UFC game has the tattoos in amazing detail that he has in real life.

It’s been quite a while since we had a fresh sports franchise, but the landing of EA Sports UFC this week really raises some eyebrows.
Mixed Martial Arts had been given a general go by EA before, but when the Ultimate Fighting Championship had their game rights pop up after prior holder THQ went bankrupt, it was always going to be interesting to see what the preminent sports-game makers would do with the official licence to the new combat sport.
Start with the looks. I’ve never seen a video game representing real-life characters look as spot on as this.
The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions are remarkable in how detailed and accurate they look.
Trademark tattoos are identifiable, facial features, scars, hairstyles are all exactly as you see the fighters in real life. We’ve seen this kind of detail before, in particular in a fighting game as EA Canada has produced the special boxing game Fight Night.
But with the new technology in the next-generation consoles, it has been taken to another level. Seeing the real-time attacks take their toll on a fighter’s face is a programming, and artistic triumph. Cuts and bruises develop and it will help you if you keep attacking that area.
Where EA Sports UFC still has a bit of a learning curve though is in the real dynamics of MMA, when the fight gets taken to the mat. It’s one thing to have collision detection used in so many games, from the NHL, FIFA and Madden games, and even here the UFC game with regards to punches and kicks.
It’s more about the trickiness of programming the wrestling holds on the ground and having it look natural. For the most part it does but there are times it comes off awkward.
As this is a new game there is a tutorial at the beginning that will give you challenges as you move through training. If you played any of the excellent Fight Night games this will be familiar to you, work on a specific skill, level up and then take it to the ring.
There are different modes so you can create your own fighter and move up through the small gyms of The Ultimate Fighter to the big Pay Per View events, or fight as any of the big-name licensed fighters like cover boy Jon Jones, local hero Rory MacDonald or in the women’s division Ronda Rousey.
All of the big names, Jonny Hendricks, Georges St. Pierre, Cain Velasquez, Anthony Pettis, Daniel Cormier are in the game along with legends like Chuck Liddell and the mythical inclusion of long-time fighting icon Bruce Lee.

The moves are all true to what you see in the octagon and the training will give you the tools on how to use them, and you best pay attention. If you just try to stand and trade in the middle of the ring, you’re going to get worked. You need a varied attack and need to watch your defence. You can’t just treat this like Fight Night, or even Tekken, and mash punches and kicks. You will get taken down, and you will get submitted. You will also get worn out. UFC fighters are amongst the best-conditioned athletes on the planet and even they get exhausted after three five-minute rounds. If you just blindly mash punches and kicks, you’ll run out of gas in a hurry and it will be all over.
From that standpoint it’s a great way to learn about the sport and to understand the strategy.
From a game perspective, EA has done a magnificent job with the controls and the game mechanics. This is a new venture for them so they were working with a blank canvas and the controls are easy to use and intuitive.
The game itself plays great as you go through the roster and try and unlock items or roll on with your career. You can also fight online which is a bit of a different proposition as facing human opponents is a lot more unpredictable. Again, it’s a new game so expect to find some “money” moves where there’s a bit of a loophole, and the same things can exploited over and over again. It’s also tough to get a “submission” versus a human opponent because without the real pain that comes along with it, there’s not that survivalist need to “tap out”.
As an initial effort this is a wonderful game. If there was anything to quibble with, it would be that there’s not more in the game, but understandably there was a lot to build and a lot more to come in subsequent sequels.
I like the inclusion of Bruce Lee, some didn’t, but I can see an arcade mode coming in future versions to add some real over-the-top fighting to it and add depth to the game. I’m not sure you’ll see, say, the inclusion of a Mortal Kombat like Scorpion attack, but I can see the game getting an “NFL Street” style mode down the road.
One of the best looking games there is, if you are a UFC fan, or a fighting game fan in general, you’ll really enjoy this one.Rating: T for Teen, animated violence, blood.What’s right: Great look, realism, fighters, excellent control system.What’s wrong: Could use more modes, more depth.Numb Thumb: Graphics A; Gameplay B; Control B; Value B. Overall a B on the Numb Thumb.]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/06/20/ea-sports-ufc-video-game-lands-a-knockout/feed/1paulchapmanprovinceUFC Light Heavyweight champ Jon Jones is the cover star, along with Alexander Gustaffsson in EA Sports UFC video game, and he looks as real in the game as he can get.Miesha Tate is just one of the big name fighters in EA Sports UFC game.Anthony "Showtime" Pettis in EA Sports UFC game has the tattoos in amazing detail that he has in real life.UFC: 5 Rounds for Meaningful Fights, Not Just Main Eventshttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/04/10/ufc-5-rounds-for-meaningful-fights-not-just-main-events/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/04/10/ufc-5-rounds-for-meaningful-fights-not-just-main-events/#commentsFri, 11 Apr 2014 05:10:04 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=149260]]>Friday afternoon, heavyweights Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Roy Nelson will go toe-to-toe in the main event of UFC Fight Night Abu Dhabi.

With headlining comes the potential for a 25 minute fight.

If you’ve seen either of Nelson’s last two fights, you know that “Big Country” has big trouble trying to make it 15 minutes without looking like he needs a ventilator, so the prospect of going another 10 minutes on top of that against “Big Nog,” who last went the distance in a three-round main event with Randy Couture at UFC 102, doesn’t exactly scream Fight of the Year.

In a vacuum, there is nothing wrong with Nelson and Nogueira being scheduled for five rounds. Chances are they’re not going to need the full 25 minutes, and if it does happen to go the distance, so be it.

Where it becomes problematic for the UFC—at least in the eyes of fans and pundits alike—is when fights like this are scheduled for 25 minutes and more meaningful contests that aren’t booked as headliners are stuck being fought over three rounds.

If a fight like Nelson and Nogueira have the potential to see the “championship rounds,” fights the carry championship implications should as well.

The winner of the MacDonald-Woodley contest is pretty much assured of facing Johny Hendricks for the welterweight title once the new champion returns. Doesn’t that merit an additional 10 minutes far more than an arbitrarily assigned main event that has zero divisional impact?

And there is nothing really stopping the UFC from pushing this change.

Pay-per-view events have featured multiple championship fights in the past, so having two bouts with 25-minute time limits on the same card is not an issue there. While it may preclude slotting a title fight and No. 1 contender bout on future UFC on FOX events, going with one or the other on a two-hour FOX broadcast still works.

With either a title fight or title eliminator headlining the quarterly network television events, you have a significant match-up that should (in theory) draw in viewers in the main event, creating an opportunity to showcase three other bouts featuring emerging talents and fighters that are a couple wins away from title contention, like getting Jeremy Stephens on the main card of the January event and giving Donald Cerrone and Edson Barboza main card real estate for their battle later this month in Orlando.

I’m far from the first person to suggest this change.

Carlos Condit lobbied for his UFC 171 bout with Tyron Woodley to be a five-round match, but his request was denied. Woodley, incidentally, argued that Condit, who starts slow at times, was looking to give himself more time to potentially win the fight. It’s worth noting, however, that the hulking former University of Missouri wrestler Woodley preferred the three-round arrangement at least in part because he has a history of fading down the stretch.

While I can see both sides of the Condit-Woodley debate, the fact of the matter is that if Woodley wants to be UFC welterweight champion, it’s only going to come in a bout that is scheduled for five rounds, so why not start preparing for that day in advance?

That “advantage” Condit was seeking is going to come into play in a title fight, so getting the experience of a five-round fight under his belt could potentially benefit Woodley and help him reach his championship goals. Maybe I’m wrong, but getting used to a five-round fight prior to the biggest fight of your career seems like a good idea to me.

Determining which non-main event bouts warrant having championship rounds attached to them shouldn’t be that big of an issue either—everyone has a pretty good understanding of where guys sit in the title picture and what the landscape of each division looks like, so it should be pretty straight forward.

For example, as much as the upcoming lightweight bout between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Rafael dos Anjos pits two Top 7-ranked fighters against each other, the reality is that the winner will likely have to fight again before ascending to a title shot given that champion Anthony Pettis won’t be defending his title against Gilbert Melendez until December. Therefore, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a five-round fight.

(Note: it most certainly should be on the main card though, not relegated to the prelims.)

Same goes with the UFC 172 light heavyweight co-main event. Neither Phil Davis nor Anthony “Rumble” Johnson are moving into a title fight after this contest, so a three-round bout works.

But MacDonald and Woodley should absolutely have five rounds available to them to truly determine who the No. 1 contender is in the welterweight division.

If Matt Brown and Erick Silva get five rounds simply because they’re headlining next month’s event in Cincinnati, important divisional match-ups that just don’t get slotted into main event spots should as well.

]]>http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/04/10/ufc-5-rounds-for-meaningful-fights-not-just-main-events/feed/2UFC Fight Night Weigh-inkeyboardkimuraUFC: Anthony Pettis Coaching The Ultimate Fighter Highlights Current Issueshttp://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/03/28/ufc-anthony-pettis-coaching-the-ultimate-fighter-highlights-current-issues/
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/03/28/ufc-anthony-pettis-coaching-the-ultimate-fighter-highlights-current-issues/#commentsFri, 28 Mar 2014 07:01:31 +0000http://blogs.theprovince.com/?p=148428]]>UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis will have been champion for 482 days before he defends his belt for the first time.

Let that soak in for a minute.

As the company struggles to find headlining acts that can capture the attention of an audience dealing with an ever-expanding schedule and a lack of capable main event draws, one of its most exciting fighters has been shackled to the sidelines so that he can serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter. That season—the 20th for the reality TV competition—won’t begin airing until September, and Pettis’ championship showdown with opposing coach Gilbert Melendez won’t happen until the annual year-end pay-per-view event, likely to take place on Saturday, December 27.

What makes the decision to tether Pettis to The Ultimate Fighter even more curious is that for the first time in a long time, there is a genuine interest in the competition itself.

Season 20 will feature 16 females fighting to become the inaugural UFC strawweight champion and the cast members that have already been announced include some of the very best talents that division has to offer. Every minute of the season should be devoted to introducing fighters like Carla Esparza, Claudia Gadelha, Joanne Calderwood, and Tecia Torres to the UFC audience and building to the first Ultimate Fighter tournament that will end with a world champion being crowned.

There is no need to shoehorn the narrative of this lightweight title fight into that situation, especially given that a Pettis-Melendez fight doesn’t need 13-weeks of televised hype to draw an audience. A trailer containing “The Showtime Kick” and some clips of Melendez going toe-to-toe with Benson Henderson and Diego Sanchez will be enough to pull people in.

Will time on TUF advertise the fight to viewers that might not have otherwise known about it? Absolutely, but probably not enough to make an appreciable difference in the number of pay-per-view buys this event will generate.

In the mean time, the main event cupboard is bare—at least in terms of marquee names that the average fan is excited to see.

Jose Aldo, Renan Barao and Demetrious Johnson are three of the best fighters on the planet and dominant forces inside the Octagon, but fight fans have refused to embrace the featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight champions the same way they do many of their counterparts. Johnson has yet to headline a pay-per-view, with the UFC opting instead to keep him stationed atop FOX events throughout 2013, while the Brazilian teammates have struggled to generate buys both independently and in tandem.

UFC 164, the event headlined by Pettis’ championship win, did a reported 270,000 buys, which isn’t a great number, but it’s still an estimated 40,000 more buys that Barao and Aldo drew as a tag team act at UFC 169.

While knee surgery was already going to keep “Showtime” on the sidelines until the summer, keeping him off TUF could have potentially yielded a pair of pay-per-view title defenses. Provided he stayed healthy (which has been a problem for Pettis), fighting at the start of August and the end of December would have been feasible.

And they refuse to make things easier on themselves at any point along the way either.

Both UFC 168 and UFC 169 featured two title fights. When you’ve only got nine champions, positioning two of them on the same card is a waste of resources, especially when you already know that two other champions (Pettis and Cain Velasquez) are unavailable for the first half of the year, at least.

Four of the seven available champions fought in a 35-day stretch between those two events, with Rousey making a quick turnaround to face Sara McMann in the main event of UFC 170 at the end of February.

With Velasquez and Pettis injured and Rousey having competed twice in under 50 days, the UFC needed everything to break right the rest of the way through the opening half of the year to make it through their hectic schedule with champions headlining major events.

But the chances of that happening were slim.

Given the amount of events the UFC has lined up for the year, keeping them populated with recognizable names and compelling match-ups is challenging when everyone is in perfect health. Planning for things to fall into place that way is misguided, and now the company is scrambling to find a replacement for middleweight champion Chris Weidman atop the annual Memorial Day Weekend event.

The plan is for Weidman to be ready to defend his title against Lyoto Machida six weeks later at UFC 175, but that feels optimistic given that he’s having minor procedures on both knees. Once again, everything has to go off without a hitch for the undefeated champion to be prepared to step into the cage 14 weeks from now on July 5.

Which is where giving themselves a few more options comes in handy.

For starters, Rousey and Weidman never should had been used together on the same card at UFC 168. Each of their respective rematches was capable of carrying a pay-per-view independently, and having Rousey and Miesha Tate in the co-main event felt like selling short on the pair after investing an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter into building up that rivalry again. Split them up and you have two quality pay-per-view main events.

Pairing Aldo and Barao together isn’t nearly as bad since neither is a major draw, but again, with two champions out of the mix for the opening half of the year, it’s hard to slot two on the same event.

Split them up, spread them out, and there is less of a chance of being left in a bind because there are more champions to call on should one get hurt, at least theoretically.

And this is where Pettis factors in for the second half of the year.

Now that he’s committed to TUF and facing Melendez on the year-end show, the UFC can’t turn to him in a pinch to fill-in if someone else gets hurt. They’re handcuffed to having him fight in December, no matter what else happens.

Instead of having a couple veteran guys with established names and plenty of wisdom to pass along as opposing coaches, they’ve taken a champion out of the mix at a time when main event options are at an all-time low.

It feels like a miscalculation—a gamble that everyone stays healthy and Pettis isn’t needed to headline an event between his anticipated July return date and the end of the year.

Given the risk of injuries and the decreased number of main events talents available, it seems like an unnecessary risk to take, which is starting to feel like par for the course with the UFC.